My wife and I both read the book recently, and were quite intrigued by the topics presented in it. We were quite happy to obtain some visual information about it, so clearly, a documentary should have been a great mechanism for that. And one titled "Cracking(!) the code", at that (good title, although the book does a good job at cracking that code, anyhow.) Too bad we hadn't read the comments on this site, but at least we only wasted $5 on this movie on Pay-Per-View, not $30 on the DVD as the previous commentator. Pretty soon we were scratching our heads in frustration at this amateur, annoying time-waster. This movie was so bad it wasn't even funny.
It's not just that most of the movie shows sitting, blabbing experts, they are rather incomprehensible at that. The "um, ah, ahem"-peppered speech will do that, but the background music, louder than the voices, doesn't help. Most of them repeated themselves or the others. Each of the two experts interviewed together actually seemed bored, if not tranquillized, when the other spoke. One expert must have been recorded using a camcorder, which was occasionally trained up close and personal on his rings or his legs. And the worst thing: They barely said anything we hadn't read in the book. The only useful bits were the indications of which 'facts' in Brown's book were actually fiction.
The movie also included footage of several places mentioned in the book, as well as some of the classical masterpieces. That was interesting, but quite marred by the post-production transition effects: pictures were "moved out", the screen flickered black, then new pictures moved in, as if in an old-style slideshow. The net effect was nothing short of annoying.
We don't know who Simon Cox is but we got to see him in the movie. For a long time. We didn't quite care to see him declaim to the camera for minutes on end. And there was also a narrator! Bottom line: If you haven't read the book, this movie wouldn't advance your knowledge, and is a rather expensive and confusing sleeping pill. If you have read it, enjoy the fiction and save your time for more enjoyable pursuits than watching this.
It's not just that most of the movie shows sitting, blabbing experts, they are rather incomprehensible at that. The "um, ah, ahem"-peppered speech will do that, but the background music, louder than the voices, doesn't help. Most of them repeated themselves or the others. Each of the two experts interviewed together actually seemed bored, if not tranquillized, when the other spoke. One expert must have been recorded using a camcorder, which was occasionally trained up close and personal on his rings or his legs. And the worst thing: They barely said anything we hadn't read in the book. The only useful bits were the indications of which 'facts' in Brown's book were actually fiction.
The movie also included footage of several places mentioned in the book, as well as some of the classical masterpieces. That was interesting, but quite marred by the post-production transition effects: pictures were "moved out", the screen flickered black, then new pictures moved in, as if in an old-style slideshow. The net effect was nothing short of annoying.
We don't know who Simon Cox is but we got to see him in the movie. For a long time. We didn't quite care to see him declaim to the camera for minutes on end. And there was also a narrator! Bottom line: If you haven't read the book, this movie wouldn't advance your knowledge, and is a rather expensive and confusing sleeping pill. If you have read it, enjoy the fiction and save your time for more enjoyable pursuits than watching this.