Angels & Demons (review)

Rating: 4/5 Check it out

Angels & Demons is a lot like 2 Fast 2 Furious, or House Of 1,000 Corpses*. It's just a matter of what you're into. The other two are popcorn fluff for: car junkies, and gore junkies (respectively). Angels & Demons is the same thing for intellectual junkies. All of them are an exaggeration of what they represent (cars don't flip or explode like that, bodies do not gush that much blood, and symbologists and physicists do not chase killers through Rome). The difference is that intellectual junkies can get; Ron Howard (director), Tom Hanks, and Ewan McGregor, to work on their films.

The story begins as symbologist Robert Langdon (Hanks) and physicist Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer) are brought to Vatican City to help hunt down a threat that could destroy the Catholic Church. The two meet the leader of the Swiss Gaurd (Stellan Skarsgård) who is uncomfortable working with Langdon because of his criticisms of the Church. Unfortunately, Langdon is their only hope of uncovering the clues and following this killer's trail. Hopefully doing so with enough time for Vetra to disarm the miracle of physics that threatens to literally destroy the Vatican and most of Rome. All of this occurs while the heads of the Church are in the process of selecting a new Pope.

Angels & Demons makes being a book/art/history nerd seem cool. This is due to the way Ron Howard handles the story. The writers (David Koepp, and Akiva Goldsman) cut some of Dan Brown's novel to streamline the story and make it a thrill to watch. It's clear that everyone involved learned from some of the negative criticism The Da Vinci Code got. This movie moves a lot smoother and finds a better way to unfold facts and interesting history in the midst of a well paced story, while it's predecessor muddled about between action and history laden sequences. Though the books were like this too; with Angels & Demons having a much better pacing and being the favorite of most people who have read both. Hanks also helps this overall feel by being more relaxed in his portrayal of Landgon this time.

The plot is pretty silly. The history is piecemeal. The science is frightening but questionable. The religion is about what you expect from Hollywood and pop fiction. However, when you put it all together you get a very entertaining film. A studious, intellectual, mindless, joyride that should be enjoyed for it's surface value not over-analyzed.

This leads me to my final point. The controversy of these movies/books and their portrayal of Christianity. It's fiction people! The Church has survived 2000 years and through that time has faced far more threatening ideas then those laid out in Brown's books (which are not even terribly original). It's time we give faith a little credit. It's stronger then we think. You never know, maybe watching a fictitious character discuss doubt, and question faith, might even strengthen your own.


Angels & Demons at IMDB
138 minutes
Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, disturbing images and thematic material.

*This does not mean I think of these three films on equal footing.

My Statement Of Purpose