{"id":6650,"date":"2009-11-18T06:41:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-17T22:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=6650"},"modified":"2018-03-14T11:17:49","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T03:17:49","slug":"angels-demons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/11\/18\/angels-demons\/","title":{"rendered":"Angels & Demons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog-angels-demons-01\" Angels & Demons<\/a><\/em> (2009) \u2013 on rental. In 2006 there was that huge outcry about director Ron Howard and Tom Hanks\u2019 The Da Vinci Code<\/em> film that was based on Dan Brown\u2019s book of the same name<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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 \u2018truth\u2019 in Brown\u2019s book. That said, I felt that The Da Vinci Code<\/em> film was such an awful mess that people needn\u2019t have worried that the faithful would had started doubting the origins of Christianity.<\/p>\n

Three years later, we get Howard and Hanks\u2019 second attempt: Angels & Demons<\/em>, which interestingly is based on the prequel of Da Vinci Code<\/em> book-wise, but in the film it\u2019s flipped into a sequel, based on several references and lines of dialog in the film that makes clear the Vatican\u2019s opinion of the books\u2019 main character, symbologist and Professor Robert Langdon (Hanks).<\/p>\n

There\u2019re quite a few similarities from the second film to the earlier one. For starters, there\u2019s 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\u2019s introduction to all the interesting tourist sites of Vatican City, and it\u2019s hard to imagine any person seeing this film to not want to see the real places in person.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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 \u2018discoveries\u2019 and breakthroughs Langdon pulls out of his hat to solve each stage of the conspiracy, and the wafer-thin characters \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 not unexpectedly \u2013 to allow Howard\u2019s crew access to the real sites, given the themes of Dan Brown\u2019s two books \u2013 so all the sites in the film are fabricated or CGed. But they sure look amazingly real, thanks I\u2019m 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The stakes have changed too. The Da Vinci Code<\/em> was centered on a fictitious controversy that there\u2019s an ancient secret society that is casting doubt on the birth of Christianity. In Angels & Demons<\/em>, there\u2019s another ancient secret society that has an antimatter<\/em> bomb when exploded will wipe out everyone and everything in Vatican City. Yep you read that right \u2013 an antimatter bomb<\/a> that\u2019s pulled straight out from a Star Trek<\/em> 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\u2019d expect it if you haven\u2019t already read the novel.<\/p>\n

I think Angels & Demons<\/em> 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\u2019s the only one with half a brain compared to all of the Swiss Guards<\/a> and Vatican Gendarmerie Corps<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

On the overall, a worth watch if you can get through the first half.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Angels & Demons (2009) \u2013 on rental. In 2006 there was that huge outcry about director Ron Howard and Tom Hanks\u2019 The Da Vinci Code film that was based on Dan Brown\u2019s book of the same name. The controversies of<\/p>\n

Read More Angels & Demons<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home","category-entertainment","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-10-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}