"Da Vinci Code" to open Cannes, critics cool

'The Da Vinci Code' stars Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou pose with the film's director Ron Howard after their arrival at the Cannes train station May 16, 2006. (Vincent Kessler/Reuters)

CANNES, France - The annual Cannes film festival opens with "The Da Vinci Code" on Wednesday, ending weeks of anticipation about one of the most controversial movies of recent years.

Journalists at a preview screening late on Tuesday had harsh words for Hollywood's adaptation of the Dan Brown novel, which has enraged Christians for suggesting Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and had a child by her.

With costs estimated at $125 million and huge pre-release publicity thanks to religious protests led by the Vatican, studio Sony Pictures is hoping for a box-office hit after two earlier big-budget movies of the summer disappointed.

But the reaction at the opening press screening in Cannes was largely negative, with loud laughter breaking out at one of the pivotal scenes.

"Nothing really works. It's not suspenseful. It's not romantic. It's certainly not fun," said Stephen Schaefer of the Boston Herald.

"It seems like you're in there forever. And you're conscious of how hard everybody's working to try to make sense of something that basically perhaps is unfilmable."

The film's stars Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou arrived in Cannes on a train decorated with a giant Mona Lisa on Tuesday, ahead of hundreds of actors and actresses looking for publicity and pleasure in the glamorous French Riviera resort.

Over 12 hectic days of screenings, photo calls and red carpets, they will be joined this year by Halle Berry, Cate Blanchett, Bruce Willis, Gerard Depardieu, Penelope Cruz, Samuel L. Jackson, Monica Bellucci, Zhang Ziyi, Jamie Foxx and Beyonce.

As well as The Da Vinci Code, the festival line-up promises a feast of politics, sex and high-octane action.

Other major U.S. productions include "X-Men: The Last Stand" and the animated "Over the Hedge."

Spanish veteran Pedro Almodovar is back with "Volver," starring Penelope Cruz, and U.S. film maker Sofia Coppola presents "Marie Antoinette," with Kirsten Dunst playing the reviled young queen as France spirals toward bloody revolution.

Richard Linklater's "Fast Food Nation" is aiming to spoil the appetites of the big fast-food chains and Italian production "Il Caimano" satirizes outgoing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Oliver Stone showcases 20 minutes of his upcoming 9/11 film "World Trade Center," French director Rachid Bouchareb examines the forgotten role of Arabs in defending France during World War Two and his countryman Bruno Dumont promises to provoke with "Flandres," set in an unspecified war.

Britain's Ken Loach tackles the early days of the fight for independence in Ireland, and former U.S. vice president Al Gore talks about global warming with "An Inconvenient Truth."

Sex hits the screen with John Cameron Mitchell's "Shortbus," except the buzz is that this time it is real, not simulated. And "On Ne Devrait Pas Exister" by French porn star HPG focuses on a porn actor who wants to break into traditional cinema.