Angels & Demons: Movie Review

Who cannot remember the lackluster attempt of Ron Howard to adapt to film the megahit bestseller “The Da Vinci Code”? It was faithful to Dan Brown’s writing indeed but it was too slow, too tedious and too boring when it came up on screen. We cannot pinpoint who or what was at fault – was it the way the book was written (but there are a lot of good movies that were adapted from novels right?) or was it Ron Howard and his crew who did the sacrilege – but one thing is for sure, it was really disappointing especially for a mystery/suspense flick. A few years after the “The Da Vinci Code”, the same tandem of Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are back to present “Angels & Demons” – a book which we personally find better than “The Da Vinci Code”. Have they learned from their mistakes already? Can they find the right mix this time given that the material is already better? Read on to find out about our verdict!

“Angels & Demons” is a prequel to the events in “The Da Vinci Code”. The film starts off with the death of the Pope and the Conclave is about to begin. The next scene takes us to CERN where they are colliding sub atomic particles to create antimatter. The team successfully extracts three canisters of antimatter but unfortunately, someone infiltrates the center and steals one of them. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is suddenly visited by the Vatican Police and informed that the four Preferati (preferred) Cardinals have been kidnapped. With this also comes a threat that all of them will die every hour starting at 8 in the evening. The Vatican Police and the Swiss Guard decided that they may need Robert Langdon’s help as the clue given to them by the kidnapper was an Illuminati symbol – the topic of one of Langdon’s books. While meeting with the head of the Swiss Guard, Langdon decodes the video message given by the kidnapper – he must find the “Path of Illumination” as he believes this is where the Cardinals will be killed and where the antimatter is hidden. Can Langdon save the Cardinals? Can he find the antimatter on time before the whole of Vatican City and Rome is blown to smithereens in seconds?

Our verdict – what the heck happened here? It seems that the same mistakes made before just kept popping up in “Angels & Demons”. The pacing of the film was to die for literally and we mean this in a bad light. The first half of the film was really a slobber knocker albeit the second half sort of ramps ups the action. It felt like déjà vu watching “Angels & Demons” and this means that it has the same quality and feel as the first so be mindful if you did not like the first film like us. The only good thing for “Angels & Demons” is that the plot of the book was good enough to salvage some enjoyment out of it. Also, fans of the book might like that it stuck to it faithfully. For us, “Angels & Demons” is a mediocre attempt just to cash in on the Dan Brown craze.



Rating: 2 reels

Why you should watch it:
-the basic plot of the film is still A-Class
-fans of the book will enjoy the fact that most of the original material is intact

Why you shouldn’t watch it:
-the pacing of the film was very slow which made it really boring the first half of the film
-feels like déjà vu once again meaning Ron Howard did not learn a thing from the first film

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