A symbologist and a cryptologist may seem like an unlikely crime-fighting duo, but when the crime and the aftermath threaten to shake the basis of Christianity itself, no regular cop is going to have the wherewithal to solve the codex which the murder is linked to: no regular victim would have created a code from black light ink, his own body and his own blood …
This is, of course, the opening premise of The Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou. The plot takes in a series of strange and sinister twists and turns, bringing in secret orders, dedicated assassins, cyphers, arts, science and all within the grey areas between. Ron Howard has an impressive cast at his calling(Hanks, Tautou, Jean Reno, Ian McKellen, Paul Bettany and Alfred Molina amongst others), and draws on their talents to provide the bones for a thriller, which has at its centre a secret which has been closely and zealously guarded for 2000 years … no more spoilers about that here. It’s more slowly paced than the page turner of the novel that spawned it – but is that really so very bad these days?