And Hollywood hit that one out of the park. As a movie, the Da Vinci Code is a triple, at best. Of course, there is nothing wrong with triples in an industry that mostly grounds out.

There is no comparing the two books. Whatever its faults, Margaret Mitchell's tale of the Old South was a compelling read from start to finish. (It was her first - and only - novel, by the way; think of that, all you struggling scribes.) Dan Brown's religious potboiler may have sold 100 million copies, but it has less characterization and sex appeal than any one chapter in Gone With the Wind.

That's one problem with the Da Vinci Code as a movie. Sex. Or lack of it. Not the gratuitous and smarmy kind of prime-time TV sitcoms, but the kind that made an Alfred Hitchcock movie sharp and steamy even when everyone kept their clothes on.

I respect Tom Hanks as an actor, but I think he is wrong for the part of Robert Langdon, the Harvard symbologist who gets caught up in the murder of a museum curator in the Louvre and spends the rest of the movie careening around Europe with a French detective, Bezu Fache (the great Jean Reno), on his tail. Since the careening is done in the company of Audrey Tatou (playing Sophie Neveu), one would expect romantic sparks to fly. Hanks is not a romantic lead (except in comedies, like Sleepless in Seattle, and that doesn't count). This is not to question his thespian manhood. If I want someone to lead me onto the beaches of Normandy, I want the Hanks of Saving Private Ryan. But let's face it, even when he got the girl in Forrest Gump, he was as surprised as the rest of us.

The delectable Tatou, star of Amelie and A Very Long Engagement (the best movie no one in America has seen), needs the kind of hunky academic that Harrison Ford used to play in his sleep. Even if the relationship is destined to be, shall we say, unfulfilled, two people being chased from pillar to post by a crazed detective and a homicidal albino monk (Paul Bettany as Silas) should fall in love, or at least in very high like. Think Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest. Even if someone must choose between man and God at the end, the audience would understand. Bogart gave up Bergman for much less. A little heavy breathing is not immoral.

That aside, director Ron Howard does a wonderful job of staying faithful to the book, if not 2,000 years of Christianity. Just about anyone not on shore leave on Pluto knows the plot. A group of religious fanatics have been killing off another group of religious fanatics to protect a secret: Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a child whose descendants live in France. (I had 16 years of Catholic education and I can't believe I haven't been struck by lightning for even writing that.) Director Howard should get credit for at least attempting to craft a thoughtful, literate movie in an age when mindless crud is the norm.

And, for the most part, he has provided an involving thriller that manages to impart some unexpected shocks - no mean feat with moviegoers who think they know every nook and cranny of the story. The cinematography is first-rate, and Hans Zimmer's score is appropriately theological.

Langdon entreats his friend, Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), to help in solving the mystery that starts with the murder of the curator. Dead bodies and clues start piling up. The bodies make more sense. As in the book, the clues are incomprehensible to the normal mind. I suspect that was intentional on Dan Brown's part. When I came to a clue as I read the book, I didn't waste any time trying to figure it out. I knew Robert and Sophie would solve them in quick time. They had the advantage of the author helping them. He said they were geniuses, so when they came across a phrase like "So Dark the Con of Man," they knew almost immediately it was an anagram, and rushed off to find, in short order, a mathematical formula, another anagram and a key to a Swiss bank vault, all in the Louvre. I'd still be looking at the phrase when the cleaning crew came in the next morning.

By the way, the dead curator, although shot in the gut, somehow manages to undress himself, paint symbols on his body, write clues on the wall and, for all I know, clean the men's room before expiring. Whatever happened to a simple, "Win one for the Gipper," followed by a graceful death rattle?

There has been considerable controversy surrounding the alleged Catholic, or doctrine, bashing of the movie's premise, that the Church has suppressed the truth, and women, for centuries to hide Mary Magdalene's role. A lot of people are having fun at the expense of the devout, no small matter. Ian McKellen, an openly gay actor, recently told an interviewer that the Church should be happy that Jesus was married, and, presumably, straight. With the summer thunderstorm (and lightning) season approaching, I think I'll opt for the more traditional teachings of my youth.

One Catholic group is fighting back. Opus Dei, the conservative Catholic lay order at the heart of the conspiracy theory in the Da Vinci Code, has launched a public relations campaign to counter the impression that it is a fanatical group whose members flagellate themselves. I knew some people in Opus Dei. A little doctrinaire for my tastes, but certainly nowhere as nutty as some of the gospel-spouters taking money in the Bible Belt. The folks I knew seemed pretty normal. Some of them even self-deprecatingly call themselves "Opie Dopeys," and spent much their time on charitable work.

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