I heard from no less than 3 of my friends (all English teachers to foreign kids) that the DaVinci code is possibly the most awfully written book of all time. One of them couldn't get through the first page...so bad was the prose/narrative. I will check it out in the bookshop but I definitely ain't buying it before testing.
Apparently it's based on stuff that was written much better by some other guys in the 70's. I haven't seen the film so I can't really comment on that either. Enjoy...(maybe)