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Seek the Truth.

Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) was to meet with the curator of the Louvre in Paris, but the latter never showed. Instead, his dead body is found in one of the Louvre’s galleries that same evening. It appears, however, that before his last breath the curator managed to leave behind hints and symbols that might point to his killer’s identity. Robert Langdon is called to the crime scene and with the help of French cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou) tries to make sense of the clues that seem to hint at a secret message included in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci. With the French police on their trails (Langdon is a prime suspect in the murder case after all), Sophie and Langdon race from one clue to the other and get involved in a war between a secret society and a radical Catholic organization that stops at nothing. A war to protect a secret for which it is worth killing for. A secret so powerful that it could shake the very foundations of mankind.

Making a best-selling novel into a movie is double-edged sword, above all if the novel in question is Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. As far as the book goes, Brown’s annoying prose style couldn’t have challenged a 10-year old but on the other hand he managed to take a relatively exciting premise and turned it into the most fast-paced page-turner in recent years. With its cinematic feel, the novel (and without doubt Brown himself) literally begged for a movie adaptation. Seeing the final product then leaves you with the feeling that this could have been much better. Unlike in its written counterpart, you never get a sense of how fast the events actually unfold simply because usually there isn’t much going on on screen. The exposition and the solving of the riddles are represented in an extremely dull way and are often accompanied with incredibly awkward dialogues. The novel entertained its readers above all because it was meant to be fun. The movie, however, seems to take itself way too seriously and it is the actors who are predominately to blame for this. Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou (Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain) underplay to such a degree that you sometimes seriously question their interest in the unfolding events. Nevertheless, the movie is beautifully shot (due to a lot of on-location filming) and the appearance of Ian McKellen’s character, about half-way through the movie, really gives it a much needed adrenaline shot. (2.5 out of 4 boxes of chocolates)

The Da Vinci Code is rated PG-13 for blasphemy.

Superspy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has resigned from active field duty. He is about to get married to his fiancée Julia (Michelle Monaghan) and is now training new recruits for the IMF (that is the Impossible Mission Force). But when his protégée Lindsey Ferris (Felicity’s Keri Russell) is compromised during a recon mission on arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Ethan is talked into a rescue mission that goes terribly wrong. Ethan and his team (Ving Rhames, Maggie Q and Jonathan Rys Meyers) learn that Davian is about to acquire a device codenamed ‘the Rabbit’s Foot’ which is bound to bring utter desolation onto the world. Davian gets apprehended but manages to escape custody shortly after and kidnaps Julia in an attempt to blackmail Ethan into stealing the Rabbit’s Foot for him.Now, the IMF team must play by his rules, base-jump from skyscrapers and infiltrate the Vatican, while at the same time identifying a mole within the agency, in yet another apparently impossible mission.

The making of the third installment of the spy series did not come without difficulties. Several promising directors (among them David Fincher) left the project while the cast around Tom Cruise changed on a monthly basis. Despite all that, Mission three turns out to be the summer blockbuster we have been waiting for. Given an unprecedented high budget for a first time feature film director, J.J. Abrams breathes new air into the dusty action genre. While clearly being inspired from James Cameron’s True Lies and borrowing huge chunks from Abrams’s own TV show Alias, he manages to keep you on the edge of your seat for 2 hours straight. Launching in medias res, the movie keeps up the intensity of its pre-credit scene with huge action sequences set in Shanghai, Berlin and on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Certainly aware of its preposterous action set-pieces, Mission 3 does above all one thing: it puts the team back in teamwork. Unlike John Woo’s stylish bullet ballet that was Mission: Impossible 2, this is nearly free of the much dreaded Cruise control. As a result, the team’s break-in into the Vatican (which comes without the usual pyrotechnics) alone is worth the admission price. It looks like Hollywood’s summer big bang madness just got kick-started. This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds. (3.5 out of for 4 MacGuffins)

Mission: Impossible 3 is rated PG-13 for destruction and mayhem.

Everyone’s gotta have them.

The President of the United States of America (Dennis Quaid) has just been re-elected. But instead of diving into his obligations, he feels more like taking a break. He feels like reading the newspaper for once, spending quality time with the First Lady (Marcia Gay Harden) and generally, cutting back on his presidential duties. His chief of staff (Willem Dafoe), however, fears that President Staton is becoming something of a recluse and tries to rekindle his career with a PR gag that is bound to shower the Prez with rave reviews. With the hit TV show American Dreamz launching into its next season, Staton’s chief of staff sees the perfect opportunity for the President to regain his popularity. Scheduled to appear then on the season finale of American Dreamz, the President will co-host with Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant), the greatest guy currently in the showbiz. Unfortunately though, an Islamic extremist has managed to infiltrate the show as one of its candidates. Forced into this suicide mission he does everything to be on the finale of American Dreamz, to shake the President’s hand and to pull that trigger.

Paul Weitz’s first outing, American Pie, released back in 1999 packed quite a punch. Not only was it original and hilarious, but it also wasn’t afraid of going where the hurt is. The problem with American Dreamz is simply that it lacks all of the above mentioned attributes, this partly being the fault of its subject matter. Making fun, or put more accurately, parodying the President of the United States and such talent shows as American Idol and their contestants as well as their hosts, is plainly too bland an undertaking. Bush and American Idol have been in the newspapers as well as the tabloids for years on end and people have been snickering about them for about the same time and it appears that the subject matter has been suck dry by now. The cast (above all Hugh Grant and Willem Dafoe) are doing all they can to keep this dream afloat but ultimately only postpone the inevitable crash with the iceberg. After an appallingly silly Scary Movie 4 (but you didn’t need us to tell you that) and now American Dreamz, it’s already the second comedy this spring that we couldn’t care less for. Not exactly the stuff that dreams are made of. (1 out of 4 MILFs)

American Dreamz is rated PG-13. It has no balls.