Angels & Demons (Columbia Pictures)
Hanks/Howard/Brown Team Up Again
The Da Vinci Code team of actor Tom Hanks, director Ron Howard and novelist Dan Brown team up for a second effort with Angels & Demons. The result is a film better than The Da Vinci Code but still not a runaway hit.
Tom Hanks stars as Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist, who is summoned to Vatican City by the Catholic Church to help respond to a threat from a group known as the illuminati. They have threatened to kill four Cardinals and then blow up Rome.
A team is assembled which consists of Langdon, a scientist named Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), Commander Richter (Stellan Skarsgard), and Camerlengo Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor). Richter puts little trust in Langdons ability to find the four places where the Cardinals are to be murdered, but McKenna does seem to trust him. McKenna is the acting head of the Vatican since the Pope has died and the new election of a Pope has not yet taken place.
The murders are scheduled to take place at 8, 9, 10 and 11 at night with the bomb going off at midnight. Therefore the film is a race against the clock over and over again. Langdon and his crew always seem to arrive at the site of the dangers with only minutes to spare. This keeps the audience eager for the film to move forward and involved in the action, but once the movie has ended the whole plot just seems wildly ridiculous.
Hanks just doesnt make the best action hero. If Harrison Ford or Liam Neeson had played Langdon the movie would probably have been much improved. At least Hanks has gotten a decent haircut for this film and that is a big plus.
Zurer adds nothing in her role of Vittoria. The movie just needed a female presence and this she is. McGregor is also a little dull in his role as McKenna. When he gives a lecture to the Cardinals on science vs. religion in the middle of the movie, everything comes to a halt.
The film is rated PG-13 for mild profanity and violence.
Angels & Demons is not a waste of time by any means but it is definitely not a riveting drama. The action keeps the audience entertained but the absurdity of the plot and also the superhuman strength of certain characters mar the reality of it all. One character gets branded, beaten and buffeted against buildings but still walks away in great shape.
Plans are already being made to turn Dan Browns next book THE LOST SYMBOL into a movie. If Howard and Hanks return for it, lets hope they have learned from the mistakes of the first two adaptations.
I scored Angels & Demons a possessed 6 out of 10.
