Based on the novel by Dan Brown about a conspiracy to suppress the true story of Christ, the film has proved controversial with Catholic groups.

It drew jeering laughter at a screening for critics, with Daily Variety branding it "stodgy" and "grim".

British film-makers Ken Loach and Andrea Arnold are among competitors for the main prize at the Cannes festival.

Christian groups in many Asian countries have stepped up protests against the film version of The Da Vinci Code ahead of its global release this week.

The release could be delayed in India, as the government requested a special screening after Islamic clerics backed Catholic calls for a boycott.

Censors in Thailand have said they want to cut 10 minutes from the end of the film - the final decision now rests with a government appeals panel.

After the film screened to critics on Tuesday, Hollywood trade magazine Daily Variety called it "an oppressively talky film that isn't exactly dull but comes as close to it as one could imagine with such provocative material".

Hollywood Reporter said the film exposed the source material's "flaws and nightmares of logic".

But it added: "For those who love the book's page-turning intensity, the movie version heightens Brown's mischievous interweaving of genre action, historical facts and utter fictions."

Contenders

Loach and Arnold are in the main competition for the Palme d'Or for their films The Wind That Shakes The Barley and Red Road.

Arnold, who won an Oscar in 2005, for her short film Wasp, has made the competition shortlist with her first feature film.

Arnold said: "Since the 19 films were announced I have studied the list several times and every time the name of my film is still on it.

"I am thrilled and if I am honest a little alarmed to be included."

Loach's film is an historical recounting of the struggle by workers in Ireland in the 1920s to achieve independence from Britain.

Red Road is the tale of a Glasgow CCTV operator whose life is changed when she sees a man from her past on one of the screens she monitors.

Other shortlisted films include Pedro Almodovar's Volver, Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, Fast Food Nation directed by Richard Linklater and Southland Tales, directed by Richard Kelly.

Thirty-year-old Kelly, who made the cult favourite Donnie Darko, is the youngest film-maker ever to be shortlisted for the Palme d'Or.

The prize is decided by a jury of film-makers and actors which this year includes Italian actress Monica Bellucci, British stars Helen Bonham Carter and Tim Roth and American actor Samuel L Jackson.

The panel also awards a special jury prize to a film being shown in competition at Cannes.

The festival is a showcase of forthcoming independent and big budget films as well as a market place for producers looking to secure deals for their pictures.

Comic book adaptation X-Men: The Last Stand will be shown as well as Paul Greengrass's controversial film about 11 September, United 93.

Other films shown out of competition include Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth which focuses on US politician Al Gore's battle to raise awareness of global warming.