Da Vinci non-review

First of all, in the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I am the Jesus Freak of the group, so I am hardly unbiased in the following comments, which are meant as a response to the "so what's the big deal?" argument in favor of seeing a movie which is historically revisionist at best, and soul-endangering at worst.

I am not going to attempt my own review of a movie that I neither have seen nor ever will see. I will say, however, that I am aware of the premise of the movie, which was borrowed from a book entitled "Holy Blood, Holy Grail", which does claim to be historical fact. The plots of both are equalled in archaeological and historical scholarship only by pamphlets dealing with the area 51 cover-up handed out at star trek conventions by 58 year old virgins wearing tin-foil hats. But rather than deliver a point by point rebuttal of the tenets of Brown's historical thriller, which I have heard is actually quite enjoyable to read and rather light hearted fun (unless you happen to believe, as I do, that Christ's death served as the substitutionary atonement for your sins, in which case nothing quite so mind-numbingly heretical could be described as merely a "fast-paced romp").

I suppose that the impact to a person's faith that such a movie can have (overtly or sub-consciously) is not my biggest problem. People have aligned themselves against, and viciously attacked my faith for millennia. I am frankly unimpressed at the strength of the arguments for this one. I've seen seemingly much stronger attacks thrown in the waste basket of history. The danger here is not intellectual merit but an ill-defined blur of fact and fiction in general. It has often been said that the most dangerous of lies contain some truths. I heartily agree. Most cults are based on luring people in with truths that appeal to the common sense (but are for whatever reason, slightly counter-cultural), only to drop a person's suspicion and then brainwash them to believe in absurdities. Brown's book blends historical facts with conjecture and outright error, and the average reader has no way of knowing which is true. It is actually quite cunning in its subversiveness. Like a gossip column, it does not claim integrity, but rather happily claims uncertainty of truth. This way, when a person successfully refutes some of the content, the reader need not throw away all of it. Sure 2 out of the 3 claims have been proven false, but the third might still be true... There are huge historic (insert whichever word you would prefer, "errors", "lies", "mindless and unwarranted speculations") throughout the book, but it is "fiction" so why footnote them? As the American Public seems to embrace such Weekly World News Historianism, get ready for a host of others, attacking every institution too strong to be directly taken on. Oh wait. They are all over the place. Women really invented everything, and any strong male historical figure was secretly gay. Search the web.

I am not going to set another record for longest post, so I will leave you with a comment on the most asinine argument for watching the movie ever. It was offered by a Central Washington University student (and millions of other imbeciles in the last few months), and quoted in an excellent review on the Da Vinci Code:
"'Even if it’s just fiction,' a student opined, 'it’s still interesting to think about.' To which another student replied: 'Your mother’s a whore.' And then, to the first student’s stunned incredulity, he added, 'And even if that’s just fiction, it’s still interesting to think about.'"

For the full review, go to:
http://decentfilms.com/sections/reviews/davincicode.html

Ichabod out.