Angels & Demons (2009) – on rental. In 2006 there was that huge outcry about director Ron Howard and Tom Hanks’ The Da Vinci Code film that was based on Dan Brown’s book of the same name.
The controversies of the novel are already well-explored and debated upon, with many religious and historical authorities already weighed in to debunk the fiction purported as ‘truth’ in Brown’s book. That said, I felt that The Da Vinci Code film was such an awful mess that people needn’t have worried that the faithful would had started doubting the origins of Christianity.
Three years later, we get Howard and Hanks’ second attempt: Angels & Demons, which interestingly is based on the prequel of Da Vinci Code book-wise, but in the film it’s flipped into a sequel, based on several references and lines of dialog in the film that makes clear the Vatican’s opinion of the books’ main character, symbologist and Professor Robert Langdon (Hanks).
There’re quite a few similarities from the second film to the earlier one. For starters, there’s another evil plot afoot this time that puts the Catholic Church in dire straits with a mysterious assassin offing her most important cardinals. Secondly, Langdon gets another female sidekick for eye-candy again, and thirdly we get to see all sorts of exotic locations. The film feels like Lonely Planet’s introduction to all the interesting tourist sites of Vatican City, and it’s hard to imagine any person seeing this film to not want to see the real places in person.
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Unfortunately, many of the ruinous elements from the first film are back in the new film too: and these include the ridiculously convenient and contrived plot, the amazing ‘discoveries’ and breakthroughs Langdon pulls out of his hat to solve each stage of the conspiracy, and the wafer-thin characters – especially aforementioned female sidekick who apparently exists only so that Langdon can explain the convoluted plot out loud in dialog just so that the hugely confused audience can try (hard) to follow the story.
As for differences from the first film, I think there’s a lot more CG work and stand-in for real locations this time. The Vatican refused – not unexpectedly – to allow Howard’s crew access to the real sites, given the themes of Dan Brown’s two books – so all the sites in the film are fabricated or CGed. But they sure look amazingly real, thanks I’m assuming to the many photos and material that already exist that allowed production to recreate these places. You get to see locations like Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Square, the Vatican Secret Archives, Castel Sant’Angelo, Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, many (if I understood correctly) recreated at the back lots of Sony Picture Studios in Los Angeles.
The stakes have changed too. The Da Vinci Code was centered on a fictitious controversy that there’s an ancient secret society that is casting doubt on the birth of Christianity. In Angels & Demons, there’s another ancient secret society that has an antimatter bomb when exploded will wipe out everyone and everything in Vatican City. Yep you read that right – an antimatter bomb that’s pulled straight out from a Star Trek movie LOL. Just to let interested persons in the film build up some anticipation too, the bomb does explode in spectacular CG-fashion, but not quite in the way you’d expect it if you haven’t already read the novel.
I think Angels & Demons was a better attempt than the first film. The first half of the film comprises the usual running around with Langdon tying one crazy and improbable clue to the next and telling you he’s the only one with half a brain compared to all of the Swiss Guards and Vatican Gendarmerie Corps combined. The second half of the film noticeably ratchets up the tension with an especially nifty scene in which the assassin faces off the Guards and Gendarmerie in a big shoot out, right in a burning church.
On the overall, a worth watch if you can get through the first half.
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