Code breakers

For weeks now I’ve been thinking about why I didn’t like The Da Vinci Code. I had some ideological problems with it, sure, but I knew there was something else that was bothering me about it that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, until now. See, I just had unrealistic expectations about the puzzle-solving, code breaking abilities of the main character, Robert Langdon. Admittedly, other pop culture figures set the bar pretty high. Nicolas Cage’s character from National Treasure probably would have found the grail easily and still had time to make out with Helen of Troy. Hell, even Dustin Hoffman as Rain Man would have been able to use his savantian math skills to crack the code immediately. The bottom line is this, though: Ghostwriter would have figured that shit out in about ten seconds. All I’m saying.