The Da Vinci Code (2006) - 29 mistakes

Continuity: In the scene where Sophie finds the cross key behind the painting, her hand is holding the painting while the key falls, but in the next shot, her hand isn't touching the painting at all.

Continuity: Towards the end of the film we see Tom Hanks remove the rug with a moon on it to reveal a trap-door to what could be the final resting place of the Holy Grail. When the rug is lifted the Fleur-de-lis handle of the trap door is visible, but when we cut to a close up so Tom can lift it, it is almost completely obscured by dust and debris which he has to remove with his fingers.

Continuity: When Teabing rolls the Cryptex to Langdon near the end of the movie, in one shot we see that the Cryptex rolls to a stop about 6 inches from Langdon's knee, but when the shot changes to an overhead view we see the Cryptex is now suddenly at least 2 feet from Langdon. Then the shot changes again and its now more like a foot from him.

Factual error: One of the main features of the Chapter room in Westminster Abby is the tiled floor - the tiles are red, small and octagonal, and hand painted. In the movie, they're big, plain bricks.

Factual error: The film features characters going through 3 doors in the Temple which are always locked. The first is the one Sophie and Robert leave the church by, the second is the one they leave Temple itself by and run onto Fleet Street - this one is shut in the film, but it's always locked in that case. Finally, the car leaves Temple onto Fleet Street using a door that is always, always locked.

Continuity: When Teabing's plane lands the sky keeps changing depending on the shot: cloudy, grey, bright and sunny. And all in a matter of seconds.

Continuity: When Aringarosa is shot by Silas, he falls to the floor. The position of the cross on his chest changes between wide and close shots.

Continuity: When Vernet slams the door of the armored car, we see the brass bullet casing deformed, flattened on one side. We next see the bullet casing (must be same one since Vernet has not yet fired the gun again) on some flat surface with no apparent damage. If the deformed side had been facing away from the camera, the casing would have been lying at an angle because when the door crushed in the side, it was almost half way in. No way can this be the same casing.

Other: During the scene where Tom Hanks brings Sophie to his colleague's house in England, there is a chess board. The chess board is incorrectly set up as any chess player will tell you that the white king belongs on the fifth square from the left. In the shot, the white king is one the fourth square from the left, ie. he is switched with where the queen should be. Teabing would definitely know how to set the board up properly.

Continuity: Before the policemen shoot Silas he places Aringarosa's cross pointing in a 9 o'clock direction. After he is shot, a wide shot shows the cross in the position it was before.

Factual error: In the Louvre, Sophie puts the GPS receiver in a bar of soap and tosses it out the window onto a passing truck. Problem is, the bathrooms in that part of the Louvre don't have windows.

Continuity: When they are in Temple Church and Teabing is trying to force Sophie to open the cryptex, Langdon asks to try and says something like "But let me have a moment". In this shot, his left hand is raised, and is next to his face, but when the angle changes to show him from the front, his hand is suddenly down by his side.

Continuity: When Robert, Sophie, Leigh, Remy and Silas are racing for Leigh's airplane, their vehicle's front windshield is hit by a branch and cracks. The large, branched crack is seen in another shot. But later shots of the vehicle on the way to the plane show no crack in the windshield.

Continuity: After Vernet shoots over Robert's and Sophie's heads in the back of the armored car, the bullet casing lands on the floor. Robert kicks it with his shoe until it lands in a crevice of the door way but it is not next to anything, nothing on either side of it in the crevice. When Vernet tries to slam the door shut, the casing is now right up next to the other door which is shown as the camera pans straight down the edge of the closed door until it shows the bullet casing be smashed by the door Vernet is trying to close.

Continuity: When Andre takes the cryptex from Sophie and Robert at the back of armoured car, and gets knocked to the ground, the position of the door changes. When Sophie comes out of the back the door is shown in the open position. When the shot changes to a frontal shot of Sophie running to the front, before Andre shoots at her, the door is now closed and apparently locked. We know it is locked because as they drive away the door does not open.

Continuity: When Langdon is reading the papyrus text, it reads: "The Holy Grail 'neath ancient Roslin waits / The blade and chalice guarding are her gates / Adorned in master's loving art she lies / she rests at last beneath starry skies". But when Langdon runs to the Louvre to find her true location at the very end of the film, the voiceover switches the 2nd and 3rd line, so the rhyming pattern is ABAB rather than AABB.

Continuity: When Tautou is speaking to claustrophobic Hanks in the back of the armored truck, Hanks is frowning; but when the angle changes to his profile, he's smiling.

Factual error: The temple church is very light, bright, and airy - especially on a sunny day like it was in the movie, it would have been very bright on the inside, not dark and dreary at all.

Continuity: When Robert and Sophie first arrive at Leigh Teabing's and sit at the table in the kitchen there are only dishes and things for serving tea on the table. In the scene after we see Silas reckless driving towards Chateau Villet, the shot pans around so that we see Langdon now eating from a plate in front of him and a bowl of fruit is now on the table. As Teabring is saying, "So Constantine may have been a lifelong pagan...", we see a shot of the table and suddenly the full bowl of fruit has disappeared.

Continuity: When Sophie gets out of the back of the armored truck, she is not carrying anything and, again, as she is running along the side of the armored truck to get into the passenger's side, we see both hands and she isn't carrying anything. A couple of scenes later, as she and Robert walk up the steps to Chateau Villet, she is carrying her gray overcoat and handbag. They can be seen even better when Teabing is kissing her hand in welcome.

Visible crew/equipment: Once Robert, Sophie and Teabing first arrive in London there is a shot where they are exiting a car after leaving the airport. As the car pulls up you can see the reflection of the camera in the front window.

Continuity: When Robert is trying to convince Teabring not to call the police, he takes the keystone box out of his jacket pocket and holds it up for Teabing to see. In the shot of the box in Robert's hand with Teabing looking at him, the rose is facing towards Robert. As the camera position switches to focus on Robert holding the box, the rose is now facing towards Teabing.

Continuity: When Robert and Sophie are inside the bank, we see a bird's eye view of the key on the edge of the table with the chain's sides next to each other with no space anywhere along the entire circle. This shot is just before Vernet comes in to introduce himself. He walks toward Sophie who is behind a table with a chair also between her and Vernet. Right after Vernet says that first-time users are sometimes uncertain of protocol, we see a close-up of him taking the key off the table. First, he could not have reached the key from where he was in the previous shot, plus he is at a different angle to the key and table when he takes the key than in the previous shot. Second, when he does take the key, the chain is in a different position and has separated so that there is a space between the two sides at the top of the curve and at the top of the key.

Continuity: When Sophie and Langdon arrive at the park and Sophie shows the drug addict at the park bench her badge, the shot from behind you can see Sophie close her badge wallet, then when the shot changes to a front one of Sophie and Langdon you see her close the badge wallet again.

Factual error: When Teabing is almost arrested by British police at Biggin Hill, all the police are armed. Throughout all the shots, however, the windshields of the police cars are blank. All cars that carry armed police have three yellow dots on the windshield.

Continuity: When Langdon is shaving, the amount of shaving cream on his face changes between shots.

Factual error: "Madonna of the Rocks" hangs in the Grand Gallery, not the Salle des Etats. The painting directly across from the "Mona Lisa" is Caliari's "The Wedding Feast at Cana." This painting is an enormous 32 feet (9.9 meters) wide. Even if "Virgin of the Rocks" did hang opposite the "Mona Lisa," it's 6.5 feet (1.99 meters) tall, too tall for Sophie to see over. The painting's ornate wooden frame is also too heavy for an average person to lift unassisted.

Continuity: When Sophie asks Silas on the plane if he murdered her grandfather she takes the tape off his mouth for him to answer, but when it cuts to the window where they all look out, you can see Silas in the background with the tape still covering his mouth.

Continuity: When Sophie is backing away from the American Embassy, she shoots through the small gap between the trucks, Robert's rear view mirror is knocked off and then the car slams into a pole, bending it completely over when she stops. As she drives away there is no dent, no mark, no sign whatsoever that the rear of her car has been touched.