Goofs for
The Da Vinci Code (2006) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: When Teabing is pointing his gun at Sophie and he wants her to open the cryptex, we see a close up of Robert Langdon who says "one moment". He has his left hand raised. In the next shot, when we see Langdon and Teabing, Langdon's hands are down.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the final sequence of the movie, when Langdon is on the top of Louvre's inverted glass pyramid, the traveling movement of the camera operator and his assistant are seen by the glass reflection.
  
  
• Continuity: When Langdon and Neveu are on their knees at gunpoint, the position of the cryptex changes while on the floor in front of them.
  
  

• Continuity: At Sir Leigh Teabing's house in the morning - the time of day changes many times. (As seen by the sky and sun rise.)
  
  
• Factual errors: Alexander Pope never delivered a eulogy or did anything for Sir Isaac Newton's funeral. However, he did at one point write a poem about him.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): While conversing with Silas in Latin, Aringarosa calls "Paris" "Parisi". The Latin name for Paris was Lutetia; "Parisi" was the name of its inhabitants.
  
  
• Continuity: When Silas has been shot, he first lies down near the wall. In the shot with both himself and the Bishop, he is closer to the Bishop than the wall.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sophie poises her black pump over the pond, her shoe is already spotted with green algae.
  
  
• Continuity: Right after Silas turns and shoots at Aringarosa he goes up to him. The pistol's slide is open (gun empty)/closed (gun loaded) between shots. Then when he turns to the police, the slide is closed again.
  
  
• Continuity: As they are discovering Magdalena's crypt, Langdon pulls a carpet away to reveal a Fleur de lis. As the carpet is pulled away it is quite clean, however when the camera closes in it is covered in dirt and dust.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sophie is being held at knife-point by Silas, you see blood trickling from the cut the knife point makes. When the scene shifts back, there is no blood or cut. When it shifts again, the cut and blood are back, and she has the cut/healing wound for the rest of the film.
  
  
• Continuity: The bandage Sophie puts onto her leg, while riding the bus, disappears then reappears later in the movie, with no sign of the injury while it is gone.
  
  
• Factual errors: Sophie presses the tracking device he's found in his pocket into a (white) bar of soap he's taken from the toilets and throws it out of the window into the back of a truck. The Louvre toilets are supplied with large lemon-shaped (and lemon-scented... and lemon-colored) soaps fixed to metal rods over the sinks.
  
  
• Continuity: When Langdon, Teabing and Sophie are in Teabing's house and Silas is creeping up, jumping over the wall etc; inside the house, it is obviously getting progressively lighter. Cut to Silas outside, in the pitch black.
  
  
• Continuity: While in the park, Sophie flashes her badge to the junkie, and then closes it. In the next shot, she closes the ID again.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Langdon and Sophie go into Westminster Abbey there are crowds of people, with police behind barriers and watching filming.
  
  
• Factual errors: The Dome of the Rock is clearly visible in the background as Mary Magdalene is leaving Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock was built in the 7th century AD, hundreds of years after she would have left Jerusalem.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the first meeting among Neveu, Langdon, and Teabing at Teabing's mansion, the chess set on the table is incorrectly set up with the white King and Queen on the wrong squares.
  
  
• Continuity: When they are on Teabing's plane, Sophie goes back to Silas to question him. She rips the duct tape off his mouth. Then Langdon gets her to walk away. Later, Sophie, Langdon, and Teabing are talking at the front of the plane, and Silas can be seen in the background, with the duct tape back on. Neither Sophie nor Langdon had replaced the duct tape prior to leaving Silas.
  
  
• Continuity: When Langdon is shaving, the shaving cream on his face changes in each of the various shots.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): They refer to the bishop as Your Eminence. A Catholic bishop is Your Excellency. An Anglican or Episcopal bishop is referred to a Your Grace. Your Eminence is used for a Cardinal.
  
  
• Continuity: When the cryptex hits the floor and the vinegar vial breaks, it sprays some of its content and keeps rolling and is then manipulated by Teabing. After Teabing is being arrested you see a close-up of the cryptex on the floor and it's lying in a very large pool of vinegar - too much content for the little vial and too much regarding the fact that some of it has already been spilled.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: As Robert and Sophie travel in the back of the armored van to Leigh Teabing's residence, they hold hands in an attempt to calm Robert due to his claustrophobia. As they hold hands, an intermittent yellow light from an external source (supposedly street lamps) is seen. It would be impossible to see any such light from within the back of an armored van. It has also been revealed that they are traveling along a secluded country track with no street lighting.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Sophie is in the Louvre rest room, you can clearly see windows. However, the Louvre's restrooms do not have windows.
  
  
• Boom mic visible: When Silas shoots the Bishop, there is a shot from behind Silas where he bends down. You can see the shape of the mike battery pack under just above the rope tied around his waist to help support his robes.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Sir Leigh Teabing refers to the phenomenon of peoples' minds interpreting the same thing differently ("seeing what it wants to see") as scotoma. In reality, it's called pareidolia. Scotoma is the natural "blind spot" inherent the eyes of most mammals with good vision.
  
  
• Anachronisms: On the bus, the mobile phone Langdon uses to look up A. Pope is a Sony Ericsson W850i, a model which had not debuted in the UK until well after May 2006.
  
  
• Factual errors: The cilice that Silas is wearing is not designed to draw blood or even break the skin, as the movie leads the viewer to believe.
  
  
• Continuity: As Langdon enters the elevator located in the Louvre on the way to the site of Sauniere's murder, the top button on his shirt is buttoned. When he exits the elevator, the button is undone.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Fache visits Andre Vernet in the hospital, he calls him Vernet Andre at the beginning of his interrogation - putting his last name first. Then he doesn't speak his name again. The English subtitles has Fache start into his interrogation using Andre Vernet's name (used correctly this time) later on in the discussion - not at the beginning.
  
  
• Factual errors: The movie refers to Da Vinci's The Last Supper as a fresco. Leonardo painted The Last Supper on DRY and not wet plaster, so it is not a true fresco. Because a fresco cannot be modified as the artist works, Leonardo instead chose to seal the stone wall with a layer of pitch, gesso and mastic, then paint onto it with tempera. Because it is not a true fresco, it cannot be moved easily, and this fact has caused it much deterioration and damages over the years. Furthermore, as it has received so much restoration, it is impossible to read as much into the detail of the painting as the narrative implies, as the level of detail concerned is more restoration than Da Vinci's original.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Langdon, Teabing and Sophie are exiting the car to the church in London, the reflection of the jimmy jib operator is clearly seen on the cars windshield
  
  
• Factual errors: When flying in the private jet and taking a call from Silas, the Bishop Aringarosa is using a cellular (GSM) phone. At this height, confirmed by a shot through the window revealing the clouds canopy below, it is impossible to get mobile network coverage.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Langdon follows the rose line to the Louvre, he transposes the 2nd and 3rd lines of the verse telling of the grail's final resting place.
  
  
• Continuity: When Robert and Sophie jump into the armored vehicle and drive off the rear doors are open. The camera shows Vernet on the ground watching the van drive off with the doors now closed.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Sophie and Robert are in the bank, and they are entering the 10 digit code, instead of 10 beeps being heard, only 9 are.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Teabing says that Constantine converted to Christianity on his deathbed. While it is true that Constantine became a follower of Christianity much earlier, it wasn't until he knew he was dying that he was baptized by the Arian priest Usebius. This was in accordance with the custom that a person was not baptized until old age in order to absolve them from as many sins as possible. Constantine died a few days after his baptism. This would technically make Teabing's remark true by today's standards, which call for converts to be baptized into the church. In today's world, Constantine was not a true Christian until he was baptized.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): A mistake occurring in both the book and the movie, Robert Langdon identifies the 5 pointed star on Sauniere's chest as a "pentacle". It is, in fact, a pentagram. The star is only called a pentacle if it is surrounded by a circle (a "penta-" "-cle").
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Aringarosa is shot by Silas on a lane way which has a gradient. A camera angle shows an aerial view of the body. A pool of blood appears to surround the upper body and an area above his head. This could only happen if it could flow uphill. However, as is clear from earlier close-ups, this is not a pool of blood but his cape.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In Langdon's opening presentation on symbology, he shows a series of slides of modern symbols and their ancient origins. The CND "peace sign" logo is shown followed by an inverted crucifix. In fact the CND logo was created in the 1950s in Britain, by superimposing the two semaphore symbols for "N" and "D", to stand for "nuclear disarmament". The false "broken cross" history of the symbol was invented in the 1970s in the United States - suggesting Langdon didn't do his research properly.
  
  
• Continuity: As Langdon and Sophie walk away from the Roselyn chapel in discussion there is a distinctive 1960s light blue Morris Minor Traveller and another small car in the background. The cars then change to a black Range Rover Discovery and Rover 75 in the next take from roughly the same point. A few moments later a wide shot of the church shows just two cars in the grounds.
  
  
• Continuity: When the plane takes off from Paris, it is pitch dark and clearly night time. When it lands in London just an hour away on similar longitude, it is broad daylight and (from the London street scenes) clearly well into daytime.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Teabing explained the situation of Rome at the time of Emperor Constantine to Sophie, he mentioned that "Three centuries earlier, a young Jew name Jesus had come along, preaching love and a single God." This statement is false for two reasons: first, Jesus never came to Rome; and second, Jesus did not preach a single God. Jesus did his ministry only among the Jews in Israel, who already believe in a single God. It was Jesus' apostles, Peter and Paul, who later came to Rome and preached Jesus' gospel and a single God to the Romans who still worshiped many gods.
  
  
• Factual errors: Vinegar or scientifically known as acetic acid is a weak acid and thus unable to dissolve a sturdy material such as papyrus. Even a strong acid, like hydrochloride acid, will takes hours to dissolve papyrus. So actually they can just force open the cryptex and the vinegar-soaked papyrus would still be intact and readable.
  
  
• Continuity: Silas is shown performing self-flagellation, but there should have been scars and scabs on his back and legs from previous flagellations.
  
  
• Continuity: Near the end of the movie Langdon cuts his chin while shaving, causing a big drop of blood to drop into the sink, but from then on his face is not cut at all.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sophie and Robert first enter Westminster Abbey the entire right side (their perspective) is encased in scaffolding (not an uncommon sight in London). When they exit the Abbey less than an hour later the entire scaffolding has disappeared.
  
  
• Continuity: When the plane is taxiing on the ground in England, from the view in the cockpit it is clear that the taxiway ahead dead ends in a field with woods to the right. From the outside view the plan is shown going straight through the intersection past the signalman, then turning right into a hangar.
  
  
• Plot holes: As the police approach Chateau Villette, Robert, Leigh, and Sophie decide to flee, taking the bound monk with them. They don't really need Silas; he doesn't possess any information pertinent to opening the cryptex. He has the gun that matches the bullet that killed Saunier. Leigh (the Teacher) certainly knows this and Robert and Sophie suspect it. Why not just let the police in, turn over the monk, police case closed. Langdon, Leigh, and Sophie would then be free to decipher the riddle and seek the Grail without having to elude the authorities from then on.
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: When Sophie is talking to Langdon and they find out she really is the descendant, there is wind blowing her hair. Every time the angle changes her hair is completely groomed again.
  
  
• Plot holes: SPOILER: When Langdon and Sophie are in Roselyn Chapel, when opening the Fleur-de-Lis to go into the subterranean Chamber, the Fleur-de-Lis is full of dust, as if nobody had touched it in a while. However, when they go into the chamber, there is a fresh red rose inside.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: In the scene where Leigh Teabing is holding the gun to Sophie's head in Westminster Cathederal, the hammer is cocked. But when Sophie picks up the gun after Teabing drops it to try to catch the cryptex, the hammer is down (yet no shot was fired).
  
  
• Plot holes: SPOILER: The film suggests that Sophie Niveau is descended from Christ and that this can be proven by comparing her DNA to that of the body of Mary Magdalene. Even if this were done and a DNA match confirmed it would only prove she was related to Mary Magdalene not Christ.
  
  
• Factual errors: SPOILER: When Teabing kills Remy, he steals his phone and dials 911 for emergency response. However, the emergency response number in the UK is 999.
  
  
• Factual errors: SPOILER: One of the key "facts" used to justify the alternative interpretation of the Holy Grail is that there are no cups or glasses on the table in da Vinci's Last Supper. In actual fact there is one immediately next to Jesus' left hand, which can be seen in high definition reproductions of the original.
  
  

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