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Oh, controversy, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways: One Christian goddess, two heirs to Christ's throne, three Catholic-crushing secrets, four religious tyrants, five Biblical rewrites ... for the good of all humanity, let's just stop at five.

Christians beware! The following Da Vinci Code review contains sentences that will make you want to renounce your faith, froth at the mouth and begin reading Harry Potter books on the Sabbath while listening to heavy metal or Dixie Chicks albums. Wait, it contains sentences that will not make you want to do those things. Whoops.

Dan Brown's hit religious thriller, The Da Vinci Code -- regarded as a masterful batch of fiction or the paperback antichrist, depending on your Sunday school status -- has braved the pre-release storms and made it to the theaters. Finally, we can all move on with our lives in about three days.

The movie version, directed by Happy Days geek Ron Howard, is so faithful to the book it should come with a dust jacket. That may be its ultimate downfall.

Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is an author and history professor who studies symbols throughout human history. While in France he's asked to help the police by looking into a strange murder at the Louvre museum in which the victim has splayed himself out like Leonardo da Vinci's famous Vitruvian Man sketch. How the slain man did this before he died, and why, begins a long journey for Langdon, who joins up with rogue police detective Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou) to trace an ancient secret society back to the time of Jesus Christ.

Brown's book, which pretends to be historical on fairly believable levels, takes creative license with history as much as James Cameron did with Titanic -- sure the boat sank, but maybe not amid a love story. In The Da Vinci Code, Brown (and Howard) asserts several controversial theories: Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene, she had his baby post-crucifixion, a royal feminine bloodline was established, and the Catholic Church has known about it and tried to cover it up. Agree or disagree -- or agree to disagree -- the movie supports these findings with a bevy of evidence hidden in Leonardo's Last Supper and Mona Lisa, brass fittings in sidewalks, secret codes and symbols in spacious cathedrals, and in knights' tombs.

The plot, as a work of fiction, is fascinating. Each sequence ends with a cliffhanger or some biblical revelation that re-defines all that we have already seen to that point. Here's a film with a story to tell, and with marvelous settings and circumstances to tell it with -- the Louvre during a police investigation, Westminster Abbey in a standoff and in beautiful chateaus in the French countryside amid gun battles.

The plot is fascinating, but it's not as fluid as it should be. It jerks a bit here and there, but it confines itself to the style and tone of the book. In fact, every page of the book is represented in the movie. It's the most complete book-to-movie project probably ever created. And that's where it falters: by adhering to Brown's text, Howard has created too many long, bloated religious lectures that are meant to explain the movie's developments. Explanation is necessary, but not to this extent.

There's not much room for acting after all the speeches. And look at the actors: Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen, Audrey Tautou ... I could go on. They are terrific performers, but here they are giving theology lessons for our benefit, not theirs. Hanks, as good as it is to see him on the screen, just hangs on to the script as it careens through Europe. He's never really in control of his character enough to give it any depth. Ditto for McKellen. Tautou, though, does bring a magnetic grace and beauty to a role that was probably difficult to rationalize. After all, the plot is rather unbelievable. It suggests that someone out there right now is an heir to Christ's kingdom. That would make for interesting playground chatter:

Child 1: "My grandpa lets me shoot cans with BB guns."

Child 2: "Oh yeah, my grandpa fought in the war and he has a scar to prove it."

Child 3: "Well, my grandpa is the Son of God sent to earth to atone for our sins and die on a cross, and eventually unite God's children to fight the evil legions of Satan."

Child 1: "Hey look, monkey bars! Race you to 'em!"

This dialogue leads us to the film's controversial subject matter. A word to the wise: just let it go. If The Da Vinci Code's themes bother you, then don't see the film. Strengthen your own home and your own family with the Bible or any other Christian or non-Christian text. There will always be controversial images in the world -- be it swastikas, cartoons of Muhammad, or figurines of a black Jesus Christ, all of which have offended people. The Da Vince Code is not about fact, but fictionalized fact. It's not real. It's designed to entertain. If anything, Christianity gets a huge plug from the movie, which speaks eloquently and with reverence to the personal beliefs of the viewers. Hanks' Langdon says it best to another character (and I'm paraphrasing) -- as long as you believe, it doesn't matter what the world believes.

As far as the film goes, the world will love it. People might be slightly disappointed in the way it flows and its length (more than 150 minutes), but it's an interesting film dealing with intriguing ideas that mature audiences will enjoy pondering. And considering it's an exact representation of the book, which is already a runaway hit, I think The Da Vinci Code will do heavenly this weekend.