“It had been so royally slammed”: the terrible 2007 movie Paul Greengrass will defend to the death
Across his illustrious career, Paul Greengrass has worked with a host of actors who have gone on to have amazing careers, so maybe that’s why he can find the good in the unlikeliest of places.
His three Bourne movies made an international star out of Matt Damon and featured contributions from Julia Stiles, Albert Finney, and Riz Ahmed. He recently directed Matthew McConaughey in The Lost Bus, and his upcoming movie, The Uprising, is set to star Andrew Garfield as Wat Tyler, the infamous leader of the English Peasants’ Revolt.
One of Greengrass’ most fruitful collaborators in recent years has been Tom Hanks. The two had been on a collision course for a while before they made their first film together in 2013’s Captain Phillips, where Hanks starred as the titular sailor, whose cargo ship is hijacked by Somali pirates. Seven years later, the actor once again got in front of the camera for Greengrass’ News of the World, playing a travelling newspaper salesman who must return a lost girl (Helena Zengel) to her family.
Perhaps Greengrass knew he was going to be working with Hanks when he spoke to the BBC in 2006, because he went on record defending one of the icon’s least-beloved films. When asked for the most recent film he’d seen in the cinema, he confessed that he’d paid good money to watch The Da Vinci Code.
“I went with low expectations because it had been so royally slammed,” he revealed, “I must say, I think it was rather harshly judged. What was interesting to me was the cinema was packed at 10pm, and I didn’t feel the audience went out not having had a reasonable time. They weren’t coming out saying this is the greatest film ever, but I don’t think they were coming out saying the reviewers were right. It lacked a bit of mystery, I suppose, but I thought Tom Hanks was superb. I enjoyed it.”
If you don’t know the story of The Da Vinci Code by now, a) where have you been? and b) congratulations. Based on Dan Brown’s insanely popular book series, the film follows Hanks’ character, Dr Robert Langdon. A symbologist (which is definitely a real thing and wasn’t just made up for the books), Langdon gets caught up in a plot to uncover the Holy Grail, which takes him on a globe-trotting adventure full of increasingly unlikely escapades.
Despite a positive review from the Oscar-winning director, The Da Vinci Code did not fare well with the rest of the world. The book itself didn’t fare well among critics, but somehow, the movie did even worse.
Reviewers took issue with its convoluted plot and bloated runtime, as well as the fundamental lack of action. Its criticism of the Catholic Church also earned it censorship charges across the world, with the Vatican actively encouraging its followers to boycott the picture. Unfortunately for the Pope (and the rest of the world), it made enough money to spawn a trilogy.
Even the most detested films have some fans. It just so happens that The Da Vinci Code, one of the most openly mocked blockbusters of the 21st century thus far, has a pretty big cheerleader in one Paul Greengrass.
