Da Vinci Code

I got to see The Da Vinci Code over the weekend and really enjoyed it. The movie it most reminds me of is National Treasure, the Disney film starring Nicolas Cage that came out a couple of years ago. It too involved efforts to unlock a puzzle created by an ancient secret society that sends our heros on an elaborate scavenger hunt in the search of a grand prize.
I thought the movie was well done, the acting was superb and the story was both interesting and entertaining.
What I did not understand was why the movie or the book should have sparked such a strong protest from the religious right. I went into the movie, based on all the hype, thinking it was going to try and debunk Christ’s divinity. But it does nothing of the sort. Instead, it is all based on a mythical theory that Christ fathered a child with Mary Magdalene before his crucifixtion and created a blood line that would have been seen as a threat to the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. But whether or not Christ would have fathered a child, it would not preclude nor does it make any claim as to his own divine lineage.
Interestingly enough, the only person who actually questions Christ’s divinity in the film is the guy who turns out to be the “bad guy” in the end. Everyone else, inlcluding the Tom Hanks character, defends the Biblical story as we know it today.
I also thought it was interesting that, despite all of the killing, there really were no “bad guys” in the movie. Everyone was acting on what they believed to be a higher purpose or a greater good, including the Catholic archbishop, the French cop and the “teacher” who set everything in motion to begin with. Even the albino assassin. In fact, you could argue that he was probably the most devout person in the whole movie.