Director Ron Howard has made many good movies, though arguably never a great one. With Dan Brown’s controversial, international bestseller of a novel -- an adventure yarn replete with murder, secret codes, mysteries, chases, assassins, secret societies, ancient rituals, and religious politics -- Howard had excellent raw material with which to work. Unfortunately, he hasn’t quite lived up to the promise of the book.

Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a renowned Harvard professor of religious symbology, is summoned away from a book-signing in Paris by Captain Bezu Fache (Jean Reno), of the French Judicial Police, to visit the scene of a gruesome murder in the Louvre. The deceased is Jacques Saunière (Jean-Pierre Marielle), the museum’s curator and an academic acquaintance of Langdon’s. Saunière did not die quickly, but left clues as to the reason for his death, written in his own blood. Also summoned to the scene is Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), a police cryptologist and, coincidentally, Saunière’s granddaughter, who has already seen pictures of the gruesome crime scene and deciphered part of the message. As soon as she arrives, she realizes that Langdon is the chief suspect and is soon to be arrested by Fache. Needing Langdon to help her solve the remaining clues, Neveu warns him and arranges his escape from the Louvre. Together they evade the police and set out on a quest to solve not only the mystery of Saunière’s death, but the riddles and clues guarding a secret that may provide the location and contents of the Holy Grail. Unbeknown to them, they are also being chased by Saunière’s assassin, an albino Opus Dei monk named Silas (Paul Bettany), who has killed to preserve the secrets of the Grail. Along the way the duo teams up with Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), an eccentric historian and obsessive Grail hunter who is a friend of Langdon’s.

The first misstep was the casting of Tom Hanks as Langdon. Though clearly the soft, pudgy actor has lost weight to play the handsome, athletic Harvard scholar, Hanks is not believable as Langdon, and giving him an artsy haircut does little to help. Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman has also softened Langdon’s religious views, to make both him and the story more palatable to mainstream audiences. In his novel, Brown wove fact with fiction so well that, for many readers, fiction became fact; the novel raised the ire of many Christian readers and church leaders. When Sir Leigh Teabing proposes an alternative theory of Christianity that concerns Christ’s divinity, his relationship to Mary Magdalene and the apostles, and the early history of the Bible and Christendom, Langdon supports Teabing’s story. But in Goldsman’s screenplay Langdon plays Devil’s advocate, arguing against the radical theories and trying to shed doubt on concepts that, in the book, were presented as fact. As I read The Da Vinci Code, knowing that Howard was making a film based on it, I wondered how the film would present these theories without having the audience hurl popcorn and drinks at the screen. Now we know: Howard and Goldsman chickened out.

The film also has a problem with pacing. Events occur in a rushed fashion. There is insufficient setup to explain some of the characters’ actions and motives, and the implications of some of the theories, if proven true, are given insufficient time to sink in. Consequently, there is a lack of drama; the film feels dull. Unfortunately, most of the long conversations and explanations in Brown’s novel, which were necessary to give the proper sense of importance and urgency to finding the Grail, have not made their ways into the script.

Other than Hanks, the casting is excellent. Audrey Tautou was well chosen to play Sophie Neveu. Unfortunately, the scope of the role was reduced, and her character does not fully develop. Nor are Neveu’s deciphering skills needed; in the film, Langdon solves all the various mysteries and puzzles. Ian McKellen is very convincing as the eccentric Teabing, and he alone brings a sense of joy and excitement to the quest. There was another minor casting controversy: Howard did not hire a true albino to play Silas, the monk who chases Langdon and Neveu. Instead, Howard opted for actor Paul Bettany, who I felt was very effective in conveying the conflicted emotions of this religious assassin. Jean Reno and Etienne Chicot are solid as Captain Fache and his right-hand man, Lt. Collet.

While The Da Vinci Code will doubtless be another financial success for Ron Howard, it should have been longer, and more faithful to Dan Brown’s novel. Instead, Howard and Goldsman seem to have sanitized anything that might have led to controversy. It is not a bad film; it is simply, like so many other films, inferior to the book on which it’s based. Ron Howard has great talent, but I believe he lacks the courage to be a great director. I hope one day he proves me wrong.

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