The Da Vinci Treasure

I have three words for you C. Thomas Howell. Made for TV? Straight to DVD? both are too good for this film. I knew when I picked up this DVD at my local Blockbuster I was in for a treat.....I hadn't seen a good comedy in a while, so I rented it and took it home. Bottom Line I want to meet the pitch person that sold this to the studio!! This person has to be the best pitch person in all of Hollywood!!! #1 Who would even attempt to make a movie even loosely based on this story #2 Why? This movie lacks everything. Acting 0 Action 0 Story Line 0. Hey studio what's with all of the distracting "Freeze Frames" and ridiculous cartoon like sound effects? Oh thats right compensating for a very poorly made movie. You would have been better off donating the studios money to a local charity! I have seen Youtube Videos that blow this away!! Here is my advice, if you get a kick and a comedic rush from really really stupid movies, rent it!! If you take your movie indulgences more seriously wait for the Davinci Code to come out on DVD.

This is a terrible rip off of The Davinci Code. The packaging is intended to trick you into thinking you're picking up the original. Then you get home and find that you've been had.

The scene cuts are so terribly distracting that you feel like a couple of 12 year kids edited this movie in their basement. I could only stand to watch about 10 minutes of it before I felt my self respect draining away.

Don't waste 10 seconds of you time on this movie.

It should be illegal to produce movies that are rip offs of (semi)good movies and then package them in deceptive cases. I've told my local movie rental to pull it from their shelves or face lots of dissatisfied customers.

I knew from the moment I saw the word Asylum that the Da Vinci Treasure was going to be a crap fest and so on that account I was not disappointed.

It would be unethical of me to say that I actually watched the entire film; so, having said that, please take my criticism with a grain of rock salt.

This movie was so bad it put me to sleep twice. I woke up the first time in Chapter 3 on the DVD and reversed back to Chapter 1 where I nodded off. The second time I awakened as the credits were rolling and I did not bother going back to watch the closing chapter.

I think the thing that annoyed me the most about this film was the special effect sound they would play when they wanted to show you something seemingly significant. The only benefit this had was that it would force me to open my eyes and focus on the scene for another 8 to 12 seconds.

Far from being a rip off of the this year's similarly titled big screen release, The Da Vinci Code (based on Dan Brown's novel), the Da Vinci Treasure seemed to flow more like 2004's National Treasure.

Despite the similarities to National Treasure this movie was filled with poorly delivered lines, cheesy 'special effects' and crappy sets. The whole thing had a very high school film class look and feel to it.

I feel dumber for having actually paid to watch this film.

This film was a total waste of time. I was watching it with my wife and soon after it started we realized the film would be terrible. To start off the special effects were horrible. The screen would flash briefly when something important apparently happened. Do the movie makers actually think we needed help to know what's going on?. The effect was very cheap. The overall plot was stupid and pointless. The acting was horrible. Nothing in this movie flowed or made any sense. I really don't mind a bad movie because even a bad movie can be entertaining, but I can't stand a bad movie along with bad acting. At the end of the movie we decided to see the outtakes to try to get something positive from this putrid movie. Outtakes are usually funny, but we were wrong again. They were full of bad language. Stay away!!!

This takes cheek to a new level . From the outset characters mention " The Da Vinci Codex " which leads to the conclusion that THE DA VINCI CODEX was going to be the original title of the movie but Asylum got cold feet at the last minute , especially when it became clear Dan Brown was no stranger to plagiarism court cases even if he was the defendant . Titles of films aren't copyrighted but this film does sail close to the wind . Unfortunately as the film continues you realise the title is the least of the problems

From the outset it's clear there is zero reality involved . The producers could claim it's escapist fantasy not a documentary but even so there still has to be credibility for a film to work . For example the opening sequence takes place at a mansion in London where a couple of bodyguards patrol the gardens armed with AK47s . The gun laws are very strict in Britain with possession of an assault rifle enough to get you a life sentence , it's not something you can posses even if you have a firearms license . Sure enough many shots are fired in the opening sequence but for some strange reason the police never arrive

The film is full of these gaps in credibility. There's a car chase involving hero and heroine Michael Archer and Gulia Pedina where they're pursued by the villains who continually fire shots at the duo . The bad guys eventually catch up with the goodies in a culdesac and politely ask for the Turin Shroud in Michael's possession then drive off . Let's see they were trying to kill Michael and Gulia seconds earlier and when they catch up with them they suddenly decide not to kill them ? Can anyone spot an inconsistency here ? The scene also sees Michael refers to the villains killing Gulia's relative who is a cardinal .Unless I missed something there's no way Michael would know this since he and Gulia were in a different location when it happened . I suppose theaudience aren't supposed to think about these plot holes instead they're attention is concentrated on Gulia's cleavage ? I'm sorry but no woman has a good enough cleavage to hide such clumsy and careless scripting

If the screenplay by Paul Bales and Carlos De Los Rios is bad then the directing is worse . Much worse . Director Peter Mervis is also the editor on the film and the editing is possibly the most noticeable thing about THE DA VINCI TREASURE and that's not a compliment . Remember in these old classic Hollywood movies a newspaper man takes a photo with a big camera with a light bulb ? There's a flash of light and a whooshing sound . We see something similar continually happen throughout the film but there's absolutely no consistency to it . It happens during action scenes then it doesn't happen . It happens when characters are introduced then doesn't happen when other characters aren't introduced . We have no idea why the director does it and it's literally painful to watch

Don't be fooled by the presence of Lance Henriksen either because despite being the main villain he's only in the film for a total of three scenes . Most of the screen time is composed of C Thomas Howell and Nicole Sherwin trying to convince us they're a couple of academic anthropologists and failing . Howell looks exactly like he did in WAR OF THE WORLDS 2 THE NEXT WAVE where he lived in a shanty town after surving an alien invasion that has destroyed civilization . Honestly he looks like some homeless heroin addict than an intellectual . As I said earlier Ms Sherwin has an impressive cleavage but if cleavage is the best thing about a movie then it's just got to be a very poor movie