I both read the book and saw the movie while in Paris last week. This was a bit weird, in that the movie was in English, but some of the characters are, of course, French, and when they speak to each other, it is in French, with no subtitles, so we lost some of the dialogue. Since we had read the book, it mattered little though.
First off, I must disagree with Rick on one point. While the book was definitely a fast paced thriller with an excellent premise and plenty of mysterious symbols and puzzles to figure out, as well as establishing the backgrounds and credentials of each of the characters much more thoroughly then Ron Howard managed in a two hur movie, Brown just sucks as a writer. I say that after also reading his "Angels and Demons" predecessor to the Da Vince Code. There is a right way and a wrong way to provide for tense moments in a story and Brown continuously failed to find the correct way of doing that.
And since Rick also kind of gave away a key premise of the story. (Jesus supposedly was married to Mary Magdelin), it also should be noted that much of what was stated by Brown regarding the establishment of the Catholic Church much as we know it today came from that "First Council of Nicaea" they mention in the story. At that council, most of the Books of the Bible, according to Brown, were first selected, and there were more then just the ones that were included. That part of the story is not quite true.
I read this explanation from a document regarding the canons of the New Testiment: "It wasn’t until the fourth century at the Council of Hippo in AD393 that our present New Testament was officially accepted by the orthodox Church. Although it should be stated, leading up to this event, the twenty-seven books that make-up the corpus of our New Testament was in circulation among the early Christians." The actual books of the New Testiment were written over the centuries from the days of Jesus Christ to the fourth century.
This is probably one of the touchiest points of the Church, because the beliefs of the Catholics up to this very day date from the decisions of these "men" who attended these councils, and NOT necessarily as thought to have been set down by Jesus or even God himself. If men were therefore left to decide the direction the Church was to follow, it means that whatever information at their disposal that disagreed with their decrees and thoughts at that time were likely left out or ignored, which is the premise Brown evokes.
They had to convince a more or less ignorant population to switch from pagonism to Catholicism. Much of the pagen believes and symbols were thus magically morphed into Catholic believes and symbols, masqueraded with slightly different intent. So Lares, the individual household gods worshipped by the Romans and others, were changes to Saints, and basilicas became large houses of worship for catholics, as they were to Julius Caesar. The title of Pompus Maximus sounds Roman, because that was the title given to the religious leader of the Roman Empire as well as our modern day Pope. Convenient.
But what Brown is implying, is that much, much more documentation from Jesus' time was just not included in the final book of worship that was to guide the Church and its followers till the end of time. Apparently some of these disapproved "Books of the Bible" still might exist, held by secret organizations and even held within the massive library in Vatican City (read the "Angels and Demons" book by Brown for more on that).
Opens up a great deal of speculation on the subject, doesn't it? Brown has done his homework on this speculation and wrote a somewhat controversial book(s) on the theme, which creates some debate I would venture is not all that welcome by the Catholic Church at this time. Six or seven hundred years ago, they would have burned the books, and Dan Brown, for spreading heresy.
