Review: Angels & Demons
Filed under: Action, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews
Part of the problem with the movie version of The Da Vinci Code was that it took itself too seriously. You had these people dashing around Europe, investigating obscure clues and uncovering outrageous conspiracies, but the only person who seemed to be having any fun with it was Ian McKellen. "Tom Hanks has never seemed so dull," I wrote in my review.
Well, say what you will about Ron Howard as a director, but at least he's consistent. Angels & Demons, the Da Vinci Code sequel, is as overly serious as its predecessor, and poor Mr. Hanks -- the world's most likable man, for crying out loud! -- is still dour and intense. I get that saving the world from disaster is important business, and the characters may not have time to smile and joke and enjoy themselves. But is it too much to ask for it to be fun for the audience?
Not having read Dan Brown's Angels & Demons novel (which actually came before Da Vinci, not after), I was able to find some entertainment in the mechanics of the plot -- not knowing how the mystery would be unraveled, curious to see what the clues would mean. The screenplay, by veteran action writer David Koepp (Panic Room) and Ron Howard regular Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind), basically adheres to a limited point of view -- we don't know any more than the Hanks character, Robert Langdon, does. For viewers who already know where things are going, there may not be much pleasure in watching Langdon figure it out, unless the movie has deviated significantly from the book.
This time around, Langdon, relieved of his absurd haircut and back at Harvard University, is summoned by the Vatican after four high-ranking cardinals are kidnapped. The Vatican, in a state of high alert anyway due to the pope having just died, believes the evildoers are members of the super-secret group known as the Illuminati. The reason they believe this is that whoever abducted the cardinals left behind a piece of paper that says "ILLUMINATI" on it.
Langdon's expertise is needed because this "ILLUMINATI" symbol is written in the form of an ambigram, i.e., it reads the same right-side-up and upside-down. (Look at how Angels & Demons appears on the cover of the novel.) Allegedly, this is an ancient secret, the sudden appearance of which can ONLY mean the Illuminati have come out of hiding, because surely no one else could have figured out how to design an ambigram out of "Illuminati."
The kidnappers have also swiped a canister of anti-matter from a Vatican-funded lab in Switzerland, with the apparent goal of using it to blow up Vatican City. In the meantime, they've left a video message for the Vatican in which their language sounds normal but is actually densely packed with clues about their plans and whereabouts. Langdon deciphers these clues and, with a scientist named Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer) at his side, dashes all over Rome in an effort to thwart the evildoers. It kind of makes you wonder why the evildoers went to the trouble of hiding clues in their message, unless they wanted to be thwarted. Maybe it was a cry for help?
Assisting Langdon is Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor), chamberlain to the late pope and current acting head of state of Vatican City (something of a placeholder until the college of cardinals chooses a new pontiff). An orphan, Patrick is devout and humble, and unafraid of uncovering the truth, no matter what it may be. Somewhat fussier and more old-fashioned is Commander Richter (Stellan Skarsgard), the head of Vatican City's police force, who scoffs at Langdon's code-breaking and old-sculpture-interpreting.
As I said, there's a certain rote enjoyment to be had in seeing the elaborate story unfold, a basic thrill in wondering what's going to happen next. What it lacks is a human touch. Vittoria Vetra is a total blank who might as well have been played by a pile of socks for all the personality she brings. Patrick and Richter are generic types, a Sympathizer and Antagonist, respectively, whose characters never get fully fleshed out. Even Langdon -- being played by the world's most likable man, for crying out loud! -- seems like nothing more than a perturbed academic who must hastily solve riddles and save Rome. He's busy and frantic, but that is not the same as being interesting.
The film also lacks a crisis that can measure up to the one in The Da Vinci Code. That story was ultimately about the divinity of Jesus Christ, with secrets emerging that threatened to shake the Roman Catholic Church at its very foundation! Angels & Demons is about imperiled clergymen and a terrorist plot to destroy Rome -- big deals, sure, but hardly on a par with what sequel-goers are expecting. As a means of dealing with that shortcoming, Angels & Demons flirts with bigger issues, including science vs. religion, and briefly claims that the anti-matter relates to "the creation of life." But this is merely bluster, an effort to make us think the film is deeper than it is. It's ultimately just a 24-style murder-and-mayhem thriller -- which is a fine thing to be. Why take it so seriously, though?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-15-2009 @ 10:52AM
Kurt Munro said...
So it's the same Langdon, same Director, same screenwritier plus another writer who wrote the atrocious new Indiana Jones and it's as bad as the first movie? What a surprise. I wish these idiots had dumped the director and got Harrison Ford as Langdon.
It seems the studio are happy just to push this out however shit it is considering it'll make a shitload of cash regardless.
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5-15-2009 @ 11:39AM
Mr. R said...
yes, and basically it will be all those jerks who finally got to read a full book (D. Code) and thought it made them intellectuals so the bookstores rapidly moved this garbage novel from the half off to Best Seller shelves in order to make a buck out of the hype.
5-16-2009 @ 8:08AM
Bobby Lewis said...
Kurt,I never got around to Da Vinci Code in print or film. I did read Angels & Demons though and it was worth the time, pretty good. I saw the trailer a month ago which seem to parse a scene from every action point in the movie. I think I enjoyed the book because my minds interpretation of the Hashshashin “Illuminati” was pretty much this:...1/3 olive skinned Israeli Mossad assassin (built like NFL middle linebacker)---1/3 Matt McConaughey in “Dazed and Confused”……1/3 highest Order Freemason I can imagineIn other words, a bronzed skinned physical specimen of an assassin flaunting his hesdonism and very nearly falling in love with himself.I’m thinking about never seeing Indiana Jones IV so I’ll always be left with the trilogy’s curtain closing on the last remaining knight stoically waving “Goodbye and I told you so !!!” to Connery and Ford as they escape amid the roof falling down around them past “The Great Seal”… -BobbyLewisBoca Raton or
5-15-2009 @ 3:50PM
mdk said...
The funniest review I read about this movie, in fact, the funniest review I've read in a long time, period, was by "Massawyrm" at AICN. In it, he hilariously compares the plot of Angels & Demons to the plot of a Batman vs. the Riddler comic book but minus Batman... and minus the Riddler.
In fact, he argues that Angels & Demons is even less believable than a Batman comic because in the world of Batman, the Riddler is insane, he suffers a compulsive addiction that impels him to leave clues to his plans wherever he goes. Angels & Demons, however, falls apart because the villains in the story have no reason to leave clues to their schemes at all and are doubly illogical because they adhere to their plans even when they know Langdon is on to them. Think I'll wait to see this one on cable in a year or so.
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5-17-2009 @ 10:41PM
Mike Savicki said...
I loved the Book, but geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez the movie re wrote the book. The action is gone. Do yourselves a favor and do not read the book first. Where the book keeps you on the edge of your seats the movie almost put my wife and I to sleep. Did they really think this through or are they counting on the stupidity of the American people to like it because Tom Hanks is in it. Which they probably will. The movie was very lazily done. Following the book might have made it a bit longer and got the budget a little higher but then you would have had a movie. Even the bad guy at the end is almost a laugh. He says i will not shoot you because you have no gun, and he killed everyone else in the movie without hesitation. He should have said, I will not kill you because Ron Howard doesnt want Tom Hanks killed. That would have been more accurate. This guy is a murderer and a rapist in the book and here hes simply a paid assassin. Im sorry, but do not read the book first. Because if you do, then you will most definitely be dissappointed. In fact, I would not recommend the book at all if you see the movie. You will feel like you wasted your money, which you will have done.
5-18-2009 @ 12:03PM
Michael said...
Horrible, just horrible. I snuck in to see the movie after seeing another, and even thought it was a free movie, I wish I didn't waste my time. This movie was so bad it put a bad start to my weekend. I wish I didn't waste my time.
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5-30-2009 @ 5:36PM
Delynn said...
The book was much better. I would blame the failures of the movie on the adaptation by the screenwriters, rather than on the director and the actors. You can have the best actors in the world (Hanks and McGregor certainly qualify), but if you start with a bad script, you're not going to get anywhere with it. And Ron Howard made the mistake of letting his incompetent friends adapt an incredibly intricate novel.
I agree with Mike Savicki in that, if you should happen to have read the book already, don't bother to waste the $10.00 on the movie--go get another copy of the book instead! It'd be a much better use of your money!
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6-05-2009 @ 6:38PM
Portia said...
Tom Hanks' appearance on The Daily Show promoting this film was funnier than any "blockbuster" I've seen in years. When he gets going on the lost (real) anti-matter, I nearly fall out of my chair laughing. Check it out.
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6-17-2009 @ 12:16AM
dj.lene said...
for heaven's sakes, Ron Howard...I say you suck...the book was a very perfect masterpiece by Dan Brown and after reading it, i couldn't even wait to watch the movie after I knew that there would be a movie of it. I wasted my money and effort just watching the movie and i kept thinking "hello? Is it REALLY angels and demons? Have i gone to the wrong room?"
first of all, it wasn't a piece of paper that brought the picture of the ambigram of ILLUMINATI. It was a picture of Leonardo Vetra (where is he on the movie anyway...?) dead with the ambigram on his chest. And why was Robert Langdon swimming on the first scene they've shown him? He was supposed to be having a nightmare and then a telegram had woken him up.
second of all, where were Leo Vetra and Maximilian Kohler? Leo Vetra was the one who invented the antimatter together with his adopted daughter Vittoria Vetra. He was supposed to be killed by the assasin and was branded in the chest and it was his eye that gave the entrance to the hassassin to steal the antimatter. Maximilian Kohler was a man devoted to science and he is the present president of the CERN. He was supposed to be the one who "shoot" the chamberlain.
third of all, are there no middle-eastern guys available for the shooting (like the one in Mummy and Mummy Returns)? It was very clear in the book that he was middle-eastern and he is a pervert. He was supposed to be killed by Vittoria and Langdon by being pushed into the veranda down the river. He kidnapped Vittoria and was supposed to rape her when Langdon came to her rescue. In the movie, he was white and he died in a car explosion (which is definitely unattractive...)
fourth of all, hey Cardinal Baggia! weren't you supposed to die? It was another cardinal who was made pope...duh. And this guy was supposed to be drowned in the river, not a fountain...sheesh...
fifth of all, the handsome chamberlain wasn't named Patrick. It's CARLO VENTRESCA. And he was the late pope's son through the wonders of science (but he doesn't know anything about his father). He was guilty because of not listening to the explanation of the pope whom he poisoned by overdosing the pope's medicine. He is the son of the pope and a nun who had Carlo through artificial insemination, which explains the pope's being still a virgin and his voluntary contribution to the antimatter which was detested by Carlo and then came the scheme of murdering the pope. He announced that the Illuminati were taking revenge but actually, he just said so for the people to take precaution. And he actually died in public, on top of a tower where every one witnessed his death by fire. And he was actually recognized by an interviewee to be a pope but he only reigned 17 minutes.
sixth of all, who the hell was the guy who "shoot" the chamberlain? I've never read about that in the book. It was supposed to be Max Kohler in a wheelchair who pointed the gun at Carlo because the chamberlain was about to brand himself. Max hid a disk on the hands of his wheelchair which was secretly videotaping the events. It was in the disk that they found out who the culprit really was.
seventh of all, Robert Langdon was supposed to find out about the evils of the chamberlain ALONE and not with Vittoria. He fell from the helicopter which carried the antimatter together with Carlo to a river but miraculously survived and was sent to a nearby hospital. The nurse got the disk in his pocket while attending to him and suggested that Langdon would watch it to see if it still works even though it was wet (because he said that the disk should rot with Max Kohler in hell and he doesn't want to watch it). It was then that he saw what really happened when Carlo and Max were talking alone.
eighth of all, where were the two (i forgot their name) reporters who were so nosy about the events that were happening? They actually received a call from the hassassin and were informed about where the murders would take place. They were reporters from BCC.
ninth of all, Vittoria was described in the book to be wearing a shirt and above-the-knee shortpants, not some sexy office dress. She was supposed to be kidnapped by the perverted assassin (and was actually perverted when she was unconscious) and she hit the hassassin on the back which pushed the guy down.
tenth of all, the last brand was not a cross, it was the ILLUMINATI DIAMOND wherein it holds all the ambigrams of the four elements of science. I was wondering where the hell did the movie makers get the idea?
I bet i can tell more but the others are very specific. I just wrote the general mistakes. It's very clear that the movie didn't give any justice to the book. It just turned the story upside-down. I was one among millions who anticipated the movie so much because of being captured by the book.
when i watched the trailer before watching the movie, i already spotted some mistakes but i never thought it would be VERY DISAPPOINTING. It really deserves to be rotten in rottentomatoes because people who read the book anticipated for it very much and only to find out how the wonderful action events in the book would be turned to mumbo jumbos.
i do suggest you all not to read the book if you watched and not to watch if you read. Holliwood sucked for the first time...
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