DA VINCI getting crucified in early reviews

"Tom Hanks was a zombie", "a stodgy, grim thing", critics laughing during the big revelation and giggling for the rest of the movie...

This is what so many of my fellow Christians have been worried about??

To paraphrase Kent Brockman: "Once again, we've been had."

Bold prediction time: this movie will mark the end of The Da Vinci Code phenomenon. The biggest part of this book's mystique has been the "Jesus Christ was married and had children" thing, that's what's put it in the mind's eye of the masses regardless of whether or not everyone actually read the book. Now that the story has been translated into the film medium (pretty darned close to the novel too, it's being said) and packaged for everybody to readily digest, everyone is now going to be finding out for themselves... that The Da Vinci Code really isn't that good a story.

Well, that's my prediction anyway. We should know within a week or two how the word of mouth is gonna treat this thing.

EDIT 2:48 PM EST: RottenTomatoes.com has given Over The Hedge a freshness rating of 75% so far... better than anything else on the boards right now including Mission: Impossible III (at 70%) and Poseidon (at 29%).

Meanwhile, The Da Vinci Code, with seven reviews so far, is clocking in so far at... ZERO PERCENT!

The lovely spousal overunit and I will be catching Over The Hedge sometime this weekend, in part because I'm a fan of the comic strip it's based on. If these measurements are any indication, that might be the one sound opening flick to catch in the next few days.