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Starring
Tom Hanks
Ewan McGregor
Ayelet Zuror
Directed by
Ron Howard
Final Grade:
C-Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, disturbing images and thematic material
a review by Heith Carnahan
The Rundown
Symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is once again summoned by the Vatican, despite their recent entanglements, to help unravel a murderous plot put forth by the Illuminati, an ancient enemy of the Catholic Church that has supposedly been dormant for ages. The kidnapping of four Cardinals appears to coincide with the theft of a raisin-size bit of antimatter, the ignition of which would easily destroy the entire Vatican City and part of Rome as well. With the Illuminati's latest violent threats now in place, Langdon must decode a series of clues that will take him into the very heart and history of the Catholic Church and force him to face his own preconceptions about life and faith.
Same as last time . . .
Anyone who enjoyed 2006's The DaVinci Code will probably like Angels & Demons as well, but therein lies the problem for me. This film has all the same flaws as the last one, plus a couple: an excruciating two hour and twenty-minute running time, and at least two endings, each of which seemed to make the thing go on even longer.
Tom Hanks has at least ditched the silly early-90s haircut he sported last time around, but other annoyances remain. Like DaVinci, the script sees fit to spoon-feed us one expository monologue after another, sometimes educating us and sometimes just talking down to us. The bulk of the first act seems dedicated almost entirely to this kind of dialogue-driven set-up, a technique that rarely (but not never) works well; last summer's Iron Man comes to mind as a positive example.
And when we're not being hammered with gigabytes of backstory and cumbersome semi-historic detail, we're swept away by endless double-crosses, countless character agendas, and a monumentally far-reaching conspiracy theory that more resembles a mass-scale Rube Goldberg machine than anything digestible on-screen. After its absurd climax, the film menaces us with a potential fourth act, almost as though writers David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman couldn't decide when to quit typing. As with The DaVinci Code, there is so much going on, and even more from the book left out of the movie (or so I'm told -- my self-loathing begins and ends with seeing the film), that when you're up against that much source material, it's probably a better idea to skip the big-screen adaptation altogether. Fiscally, of course, it makes no sense, but artistically, it's the only sound choice out there.
As always, the Catholic Church itself has pitched a fit at the film's implications, but implications they are not -- Angels & Demons has one main clear-cut enemy, and that is the Church itself. The Illuminati are a plot device, at least in this script. Director Ron Howard's real villains are all cut from the same Cloth. I was astounded, as the film lumbered on, threatening to never end my misery, at the number and scale of accusations author Dan Brown has hurled at Catholicism as an institution. And if this is what made it into the film, for Heaven's sake, I'd hate to see what was left out.
The Bottom Line
The DaVinci Code was a two-and-a-half hour test of patience, and Angels & Demons fares no better. If purgatory exists, it will come to us in the form of a third film. Let's all pray that doesn't happen.
-- Heith Carnahan, heith @ movie-popcorn.com