In the UK Daily Mirror - just as I had heard, the historical material is backed up with flashbacks
Although the movie closely follows the book's storyline, Howard delivers something Dan Brown doesn't - dramatic recreations of events relating to the book's central inflammatory theory that for 2,000 years the Catholic Church has been covering up the fact that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a daughter, whose bloodline has survived into present-day Europe.
As well as scenes of the Inquisition and of women being tortured, burned and drowned, Howard shows Mary Magdalene fleeing the Holy Land for France and giving birth there.
There's another link to a review in the Telegraph out there, but this is by the same guy - in fact, it's basically the same review, and it's longer.
(Correction: It's not a review of the whole 2.5 hour film, but rather of 35 minutes or so of it...Thanks Barb! Read comments on this post for Barbara Nicolosi's ear-on-the-ground report about waht people are saying in Hollywood...)
This guy was only shown 35 minutes of a film that runs 2.5 hours.
The buzz on the streets here in Hollywood is that the film is embarrassingly bad. The studio has stirctly limied the MPAA screening - usually about 500-800 people - to only 100 people. No one is getting in to advance screenings which has everybody saying things like, "The only time studios act this way is when they have a Class A Dud on their hands."
The script is a dud. The ultra-weird transitions from people running from long-winded seminars on ecclesiastical history to murderous Opus Dei assassins to Biblical period flashbacks of Jesus and Mary Magdalen looking tenderly at each other made me laugh at loud.
Sony knows they will only have devastating word of mouth on this one. So they have to get everybody in the first weekend.
Posted by: Barb N | May 13, 2006 at 02:26 PM
Oh great. Showing the church burning women!!! Now even MORE people will believe that myth!!!
Posted by: susanr | May 13, 2006 at 02:38 PM
+JMJ+
That's heartening news, Barbara. Yet will people know that it's a dud, or will they think it's really great movie the way they think that the dud that is _V for Vendetta_ is a really great movie? :S
Posted by: Enbrethiliel | May 13, 2006 at 02:51 PM
Well, the book is pretty bad too but that doesn't stop people from reading it. They eat it up because it gives them an excuse to make up their own religion
Posted by: Amy | May 13, 2006 at 04:45 PM
Even if the 18-35 demographic might not be entirely convinced to see it, let's hope "Over The Hedge" has a blockbuster opening weekend.
Besides DVC, there's another horror flick opening on the 19th (and I thought the satanic gore-fests only showed up at Christmas and Easter!), called "See No Evil" or something. Somehow, I don't think that will be the object of the "othercott."
Isn't it wonderful that we have so many great cinematic options? Here's hoping Barbara Nicolosi's ACT ONE will be a shot in the arm not only for Hollywood but for the whole country.
Posted by: Neil | May 13, 2006 at 07:32 PM
Well, the Mirror is certainly fawning over the movie, giving it a gushing review. It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.
Posted by: Veronica | May 14, 2006 at 01:36 AM
Saw a DVC movie poster yesterday...why does Paul Bettany look like Anakin Skywalker halfway to Darth Vader?
Posted by: JonathanR. | May 15, 2006 at 01:15 PM