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That a mosh pit of reviewers would fall over each other to pan the The Da Vinci Code is puzzling. It’s not a great film, but then it isn’t a great book. If you want car chases, go see Mission: Impossible III. If you want a whodunit, don’t turn to a novel so widely discussed that even those who haven’t read it know who the bad guy is (and where the “sacred feminine” is buried). If you want a profound, subtle meditation on faith, then a story with a self-flagellating, murderous albino monk is probably not your bag.

One didn’t need a Harvard symbologist to decode this one. With its built-in advantage of a best-seller source novel—and the dependable Ron Howard directing fan favorite Tom Hanks—The Da Vinci Code translated fame into box-office success on its first weekend in release.

Its estimated May 19-21 gross was $77 million, according to the box-office analysis firm Exhibitor Relations—more than the rest of the top ten movies combined.

Did the movie version of The Da Vinci Code introduce some skepticism to the part of the Harvard professor played by Tom Hanks so as to soften the novel’s bald claims about church cover-ups concerning Jesus?

Veteran religion writer Richard Ostling of the Associated Press thinks so. He noted some changes in a pivotal theological discussion between the story’s two experts, Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) and Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen).