MovieMantz Rantz: ‘Da Vinci’ Panned In Cannes (May 17, 2006)

The hype is at a fever pitch!  The controversy has been building for weeks!  Hopes are extremely high in Hollywood for what could turn out to be the biggest movie of the summer!

You’d have to be living under a rock not to know what I’m talking about.  For better or worse, “Da Vinci Code” mania has gripped the world, and in just 2 days, moviegoers will finally get to see the big screen version of Dan Brown’s best selling book for themselves.

But across the pond at the Cannes Film Festival, critics have already seen it — and it doesn’t sound like they liked what they saw.  Daily Variety calls it “a stodgy, grim thing.”  The Hollywood Reporter says that “The Da Vinci Code” is “an unwieldy, bloated melodrama.”  Even influential Time Magazine film critic Richard Corliss was disappointed, calling the movie “a dud” (ouch!).

For Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is releasing the highly anticipated $125 million thriller in 65 countries around the world, those early reviews can’t be a good thing.

But will they matter?  After all this buildup, will moviegoers really care what the critics think?  Won’t they see the movie anyway?

Of course they will.  After all, this wouldn’t be the first time that a critically reviled movie raked in a ton of cash at the box office.  Back in 1999, “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace,” which was also screened at that year’s Cannes Film Festival, was one of the year’s worst-reviewed movies, but that didn’t stop the first new “Star Wars” flick in 16 years from grossing more than $925 million worldwide.  A few years later, in 2003, another highly anticipated sequel, “The Matrix Reloaded,” opened to so-so reviews before grossing over $725 million worldwide.

Obviously, those films cater to a much younger audience than those who will flock to “The Da Vinci Code,” but for a more apples-to-apples comparison, let’s consider “The Passion of the Christ.”  Talk about a movie that was also steeped in religion, controversy and backlash, director Mel Gibson’s passion project opened on Ash Wednesday in 2004 to very mixed reviews, only to gross more than $670 million worldwide.

Now while “The Passion” was based on a religious text versus a work of pure fiction like “The Da Vinci Code,” the fact is that Sony need not worry.  Whether “Da Vinci” gets trashed or praised, it doesn’t matter.  After all this buildup, moviegoers are bound to line up at the turnstiles and see what the fuss is all about.

As for whether or not the film will live up to their expectations…well, that’s another story.