The Da Vinci Code Goes Over The Hedge

Reviewing “The Da Vinci Code” and “Over the Hedge”
I read the book quite a while back so I forgot a lot of the details that were mentioned in the movie and in theory when you review a movie you have to stay a way from saying that cliché of “it stays true to the book”. In this case I can’t help but do that because the movie was basically a scene by scene copy of the book except that it took apart the Dan Brown “style” of jumping from side-plot to side-plot and put them all together to have one long running story line.

By now everyone knows what the story is about and if they haven’t heard it then they’ve been living under a rock; the search for the Holy Grail, but not the way of Indiana Jones.

Suffice to say the book was more controversial than the movie, possibly because so much information was left out of the latter so as to not overload the audience. I found that the movie was long and had nothing special about it, at least nothing to qualify for a summer blockbuster. In fact, if it wasn’t for the controversy of the book the movie would’ve passed more or less unnoticed. I was disappointed to say the least.

It had nothing to offer unless you haven’t read the book then maybe it will be a tad interesting but probably more confusing. Ron Howard does a pretty good directing job; I especially like the historical flashbacks where a whole other scene reenacting the story appears like an overlapping fog.

Nothing else really stood out except for Paul Bettany’s great portrayal of the Opus Dei albino monk, Silas.

So if you’ve read the book you won’t get anything out of this movie, and if you haven’t read the book then the movie will probably be too confusing and long (about 2.5 hours)

Really, save your money. Mark my words, X-Men III will be knocking Da Vinci from number one spot this time next week.

Bottom Line: 3/5

The weekend is not completely lost. If you really want to go see a movie Over the Hedge really has something to offer. I know itâ??s a family movie but thatâ??s something I never understood with these kinds of films. Itâ??s called a family film because parents bring the kids, or the other way around. But in reality while the kids are distracted by the quick paced colourful animations on the screen, the story is meant for the adults in the audience.
The story is quite simple really, RJ the racoon (Bruce Willis), has one week to return all the food he stole from Vincent the bear (Nick Nolte) so he heads to the one place with all the goods: the suburbs. Meanwhile a group of hibernating animals awaken to find their forest has disappeared, surrounded now by a hedge in the middle of suburbia. So RJ sees an opportunity to introduce these naïve creatures to the human world, our ways of excessive consumption, and above all sugar and MSG; all the while using them to gather the food he needs.

The story basically takes off from there and has a huge cast including Bruce Willis, Nick Nolte, Garry Shandling, William Shatner, Wanda Sykes and Steve Carell. Although itâ??s not at the level of the â??greatsâ? such as Shrek itâ??s still pretty funny and very entertaining. Steve Carell does a brilliant job with Hammy the fast paced squirrel (who likes cookies) and offers the biggest laughs in the film. Heâ??s that one character that people always love in every animation movie.

Itâ??s scattered with references to pop-culture and old movies as well as a satirical view of the human world living in suburbia.

Ben Folds does the soundtrack with some pretty great original tunes, even a version of Rocking the Suburbs with William Shatner. Iâ??ll be sure to include it in my next Radio post.

Bottom Line: 4/5