Film set to fan Da Vinci furore

The eagerly awaited film of The Da Vinci Code is the most controversial Hollywood movie since Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.

Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou in The Da Vinci Code
Tom Hanks co-stars in the film with French actress Audrey Tautou
But what can Ron Howard's adaptation add to the furore that has surrounded Dan Brown's best-selling novel since it first arrived in bookstores in 2003?

For a book revolving around a labyrinthine mystery, it is remarkable how many of its "surprise" elements have become common knowledge.

Indeed, even those who have not read the novel probably know more than they care to about its contents.

For the record, they involve a centuries-old cover-up to conceal the true nature of the Holy Grail, the clues to which are hidden in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci.

It is these that lead Harvard professor Robert Langdon on a cryptic quest that takes him from the Louvre in Paris and Westminster Abbey in London to Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland.

It is there the film reveals the secret behind the Code - a revelation that will already be known to many of this website's readers.