Outside of the Toy Story franchise, Tom Hanks doesn’t really do sequels or blockbuster movies, so there was plenty of interest when the beloved actor signed on to star in a potential multi-film series based on a literary phenomenon.
Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code went on to become a monster-sized hit at the box office, and spawned two sequels that suffered greatly from the law of diminishing returns, but critics were left feeling cold after sitting through an agonizingly dull opening installment that dragged on for way too long at 149 minutes.
Hanks and his majestic floppy hair set out to unravel a mystery that threatens to unravel the very fabric of Christianity, which puts him in the cross hairs of some very dangerous people who’d rather the world didn’t find out that a bedrock of many people’s lives for over 2000 years isn’t quite what it was made out to be.
Along for the ride is a star-studded supporting cast that features Audrey Tatou, Paul Bettany, Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina, Jean Reno, and many more, but it goes without saying that The Da Vinci Code generated no shortage of controversy in the buildup to release after rubbing many folks the wrong way.
The $125 million thriller was banned in countless countries after being deemed offensive, while protests were staged at the Vatican, while there was also talk of boycotts and potential legal action. Ultimately, it all turned out to be for nought, when The Da Vinci Code shocked a lot of people by hoovering up a hefty $760 million at the box office.
A 25% Rotten Tomatoes score and 57% user rating underlines that there was no need for so much backlash to engulf a project so monotonously uninteresting, but as per FlixPatrol, that hasn’t stopped The Da Vinci Code from securing a place on the Netflix most-watched list over the weekend.