Soon the earth-shattering mystery shrouded in the mists of eternity will finally be revealed in an event that will strike at the heart of the Vatican and the very nature of faith itself: can the movie “The DaVinci Code” possibly be as aggravating as the novel?
I’m not talking about the religious controversy, that’s nothing. The Big Important Centuries-Old Mystery That Secret Organizations of Guys in Robes Will Kill to Protect was written about many times before Dan Brown took a shot at it. Besides, Robert Anton Wilson’s version was funnier.
It’s the style. It drove me crazy. In Brown’s novel, every thought must be ploddingly worked through. Every memory must be explored in tedious and digressive detail, suggesting that the intrepid codebreakers have been toking away and are one step from breaking out the Cheetos. Can Tom Hanks and Ron Howard somehow capture this elusive, inexplicably best-selling format in cinematic form? Roll the clip!
INT. SIR TEABING’S STUDY, NIGHT. Langdon, Teabing, and Sophie are studying the unrolled painting of the Mona Lisa.
LANGDON
There appear to be numbers under the paint, each one corresponding to a different color. What could it mean? Is it a hidden code?
SOPHIE
It must be. Hidden codes have followed me all my life.
FLASHBACK DISSOLVE TO:
INT. LIBRARY. A teenage Sophie is frantically grabbing at book after book, body-checking other patrons over railings and through windows in the process.
SOPHIE
(voiceover)
For years I had considered syphilis preferable to the written word, preferring to have everything read to me by passersby. It was only after I developed a physical addiction to crossword puzzles that I discovered my knack for deciphering, which was carefully coaxed into life by my psychopathic cryptology teacher.
FLASHBACK DISSOLVE TO:
INT. CLASSROOM. Surrounded by other children — some chained to their desks with intricately worked locks, some nailed to the wall in a binary pattern — the young Sophie looks fearfully at her teacher, Professor Allright, who is grimly carving the Atbash Cypher into an underclassman.
ALLRIGHT
(voiceover)
Woe to the student who couldn’t solve the deviously difficult puzzle that opened the bathroom, or navigate the hidden traps and spring-loaded dangers of recess. I knew that one of these children would someday have to defy unstoppable, all-powerful enemies to crack an ancient code and expose the secret at the core of western religion itself, and it was up to me to craft them into twitching, neurotic, anal-retentive cryptographers, especially young Sophie to whom I was oddly drawn. Even my beloved sister, who did her best to brighten my days, came second to my destiny.
FLASHBACK DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. SUNLIT PARK. Professor Allright is being dragged by the feet into a sunny glen by his sister, a laughing young woman named Giselle. We focus on her, ignoring Allright who will never be mentioned again. She stops suddenly, terrified, staring at something we won’t learn about for at least six more flashbacks, and then runs away.
GISELLE
(voiceover):
I kept trying to draw my brother away from the enclosed scholastic life and constant child abuse allegations and into the bright sunlight of Paris to live and breathe and experience. This was difficult because of his fierce dedication and because we lived in Chicago. Yet I could never forget what I saw on that fateful day. I never forgot it. Never, not even for a little bit, it was just that bad. Really, really bad. I moved to Washington and got a job creating celebrity crossword puzzles.
FLASHBACK DISSOLVE TO:
INT. TEABING’S STUDY. Teabing is snoring on the couch. Langdon is ripping apart another priceless painting with a claw hammer.
LANGDON
See? This dog doesn’t belong with the others! He’s holding Go Fish cards, not poker cards! It all fits!
SOPHIE
So all this time those crossword puzzles were connected through a bizarre series of coincidences that make little sense and advance the plot not at all!
LANGDON
We’re close, we’ve very close. All we need is one more attack by masked assailants and I’ll have it!
SOPHIE
What?
LANGDON
Another Oscar. If I don’t get one every few years, I break out.
TEABING
(jerking awake)
Sorry, I was suddenly remembering the Palazzo Ducale in Venice, residence of the Doge and decorated with frescoes and paintings (including Tintoretto’s Paradise, the world’s largest oil canvas) that conceal the hidden chambers where the Council of Ten met, the tribunal where three judges condemned the guilty and hanged them from the rafters, and the cramped ‘leads’ cells under the roof from which Casanova famously escaped. Which is odd, because I’ve never been there.
SOPHIE
Aha! I can see words when I hold this brass and cherry wood Flintstone Secret Decoder Device over Langdon’s body! “Chicken Doses Viaduct.” What could it be?
LANGDON
Heh, yeah, never mind that, I was filming “Turner and Hooch” and I was drunk and there was this tattoo place… no, don’t…!
FLASHBACK DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. ALLEYWAY, NIGHT. Langdon is sitting in a police car on a movie set. A large dog is next to him, licking his face with a tongue the size of a porterhouse steak.
LANGDON: Nooooooo!
This weekend: The DaVinci Code. Seek the truth. It’s still better than “Poseidon.”