Hanks reacts to Da Vinci critics

The actor told London's Evening Standard newspaper the film was loaded with "hooey" and "nonsense".

"If you are going to take any sort of movie at face value, particularly a huge-budget motion picture like this, you'd be making a very big mistake."

The film has attracted criticism from religious leaders and organisations.

The Da Vinci Code receives its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday.

'Scavenger hunt'

Leading figures in the Catholic Church have called for a boycott of the film, which they claim is blasphemous and an attack on their faith.

Author Brown's book includes a tale that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and had children, a secret bloodline that has been covered up by the Catholic Church.

But Hanks, who plays a Harvard professor in Ron Howard's film, said the film was "a lot of fun", likening it to a "scavenger hunt".

"We always knew there would be a segment of society that would not want this movie to be shown," he said.

But he claimed that it "never hurts" for a film to provoke "dialogue" about religious issues and history.

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