In Other Media is not a fan of The New Yorker‘s funnyman film critic, Anthony Lane, clinging as we do to the idealistic belief that a review should be something more than a preening display of the reviewer’s own cleverness and wit. But Lane’s review of the film adaptation of The Da Vinci Code is still worth a look for a couple of reasons. One is that he appears to have hated the film so intensely that actual anger flashes here and there amid the glib quips.

The other reason is that Lane also finds time to attack Dan Brown’s source novel (not to mention its readers, whom he calls “lemmings”) with some barbs that actually hit home. He writes: “Brown proves that he hails from the school of elbow-joggers — nervy, worrisome authors who can’t stop shoving us along with jabs of information and opinion that we don’t yet require. (Buried far below this tic is an author’s fear that his command of basic, unadorned English will not do the job; in the case of Brown, he’s right.)”

Related links:
Click here for Anthony Lane’s Da Vinci Code review