“DA VINCI CODE” BOMBS WITH CRITICS

Here’s a sample of what critics who previewed “The Da Vinci Code” yesterday had to say about the movie:

· “Dud”; Unwieldy”; “Plodding.” (Reuters)

· “A Bloated Puzzle”; “The movie is so drenched in dialogue musing over arcane mythological and historical lore and scenes grow so static that even camera movement can’t disguise the dramatic inertia”; “No chemistry exists between the hero and the heroine.” (Hollywood Reporter)

· “Almost as bad as the book.” (Boston Globe)

· “High-minded lurid material sucked dry by a desperately solemn approach”; They’ve “drained all the fun out of the melodrama.” (Variety)

· When the movie “takes a brief wrong turn, and Howard momentarily loses control of his huge, streamlined vehicle, it’s hard to say where to put the blame.” (FoxNews.com)

· “Critics Crucify ‘Da Vinci Code.’” (Australian Associated Press)

· “Critics largely panned the cinematic version”; “The movie did receive some lukewarm praise, but the majority of the response was highly critical”; “One scene during the film, meant to be serious, elicited prolonged laughter from the audience. There was no applause when the credits rolled; instead, a few catcalls and hisses broke the silence.” (CNN)

· “At one point, some of them responded in the auditorium with laughter to one of the developments in the plot—something director Ron Howard would not have anticipated.” (Press Association Newsfile)

· “Shrugs of indifference, some jeering laughter and a few derisive jabs”; “The Cannes audience clearly grew restless as the movie dragged on to two and a half hours and spun a long sequence of anticlimactic revelations”; “Some people walked out during the movie’s closing minutes…and there was none of the scattered applause even bad movies sometimes receive at Cannes.” (AP)