Angels and Demons

Most people who read are people I know, therefore most of you already know of the pure hatred I have for Dan Brown. Okay, that is taking it too far. I do not hate the man or his books, I do hate that people prop the books up as being amazing. The man cannot write. His stories might be interesting and I understand why people enjoy them to a certain extent, but he writes pop fiction where his pompous ass wants to believe it or not. That being said, I was excited about The Da Vinchi Code movie because I figured they would get rid of all the crappy stuff from the book and just make an entertaining movie; I was wrong. When Angels and Demons came out, I was sure it would suck, but all it had to do was be better than The Da Vinchi Code. The bar was set so low, in order to fail, the movie would have to be on par with the last two Pirates movies and that was not possible, right? Well, we shall see.

Robert Langdon(Tom Hanks, without the silly hair) is being called to The Vatican because the Catholic Church is in dire straights. The Pope has died and the four Cardinals expected to be the leading candidates to take over as Pope have been kidnapped and the kidnappers have threatened to kill one every hour, publicly and then at midnight the Vatican will be blown up. The group behind it is The Illuminati. The Illuminati was an organization of scientists that were enemies to the church because they tried to explain how everything in the world could be solved through science and in the early years of the church, the church killed everyone who taught something different. The Illuminati promised they would have their revenge and it appears that time has come. Langdon happens to be an expert on The Illuminati and he comes to the Vatican in a race against time. Armed with his wits, knowledge and a sexy scientist, Vittoria(Ayelet Zurer), Langdon races through the streets and churches of The Vatican to try and pick up the clues on how The Illuminati used to communicate with each other to find the old Illuminati home base, where the bomb like substance is held.

Angels and Demons follows a very easy pattern: race through the street, stand and talk about Illuminati, stand and talk about Catholic Church, repeat. It is a simple formula, but at least, it is actually entertaining. Ron Howard, who has now direcrted both Langdon films, amped up the action and suspense, giving Angels and Demons a sense of urgency that makes it heads and shoulders above Da Vinchi. Like I said, my expectations were quite low and this movie blew right by them. The deaths of the Cardinals are pretty brutal for a PG-13 movie and there was a brief second in time when I thought the movie might be a little brave. It did not follow through on it, but I liked the idea that it might. The races through The Vatican were nicely paced, even if they did manage to get many places just a second too late, no matter where they started. Howard does a nice job of setting up about 4 different people who could be the villain, although I assume most people knew because they read the book. Mostly, though, the dialog was worlds above the garbage from Da Vinchi. The words did not feel stilted, the dialog moved along at a brisk pace, even if there were times I had no idea what they were talking about and I appreciated the ultimate themes of science vs. religion, or science and religion.

It helps that the story of this movie is far more interesting than The Da Vinchi Code,but the movie could have still failed. It doesn't fail in part to some solid performances. Ewan McGregor shows a quiet intelligence and puts a kind face on faith as a priest who is kind of in charge until a new pope is picked. Stellen Skarsgard is his usual tight assed self and he does a great job of playing a potential villain and he plays well off of Hanks' flippant sense of humor. Armin Mueller-Stahl is wonderful as a Cardinal who gets a great compassionate speech towards the end. While Hollywood is the only place where scientists look so sexy, Zurer has a pretty thankless job of being the person Langdon tells everything to, even thought she already knows them. We need to know and she is saddled with that task. As for Hanks, he is much better as Langdon here than he was in the first movie.

Angels and Demons still suffers from being far too long with an ending that does not want to end. At 2 hours and 20 minutes, it stretches the good will it gets in the first half to the point where you start looking at your watch repeatedly in the final 40 minutes. Also, the whole movie is a big tease, as we do not get the pay off we want. We invest so much time in one thing and for it to turn out a giant red herring was disappointing, but I should have expected it from a Dan Brown story. The story is not as bad on Catholicism as one would have expected considering the Vatican did not let them shoot them movie within the city. That being the case, the CGI city actually looks pretty good as it is cut with actual footage creating a city that becomes a character in the story. The Score is far too over the top and the editing is a bit sloppy in moments during the individual chases.

I went in expecting a pretty mediocre movie and left feeling mostly satisfied. It is a huge step up from The Da Vinchi Code in many ways, but is still too overwrought for me to really love the movie. I am still upset I did not get the climax I deserved or the climax I felt I was promised, but all things considered I was entertained. Deep discussions on how science and religion can work together were not had, but they were touched on, although they did not do enough to spark conversation between myself and Erik. Ron Howard figured out what did not work from the last movie and fixed it here, so maybe by the third movie they will make a truly solid film.

Final Grade: C+