Generic thriller with a terrific look


Image Courtesy of IMPawards.com

Director: Ron Howard
Notable Cast: Tom Hanks, Ayelet Zurer, Ewan McGregor, Stellan Skarsgard

The success of The Da Vinci Code is something that’s tough to explain. Filled with cliff-hangers, plot holes and a generic hard boiled detective story, Dan Brown’s work somehow managed to gain a sizeable audience which translated to box office success for the film version. Now, like any successful film, a sequel has been spawned in what could be a religious thriller franchise with Brown‘s “The Lost Symbol“ on the horizon. God help us.

With the death of the Pope, the secret society known as the Illuminati have returned to wreck vengeance upon the Vatican. Kidnapping the men most likely to be nominated to be the next Pope, and setting up a bomb designed to destroy the Catholic country, it’s up to Professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) to save the day. Aided by a new attractive female sidekick, physicist Vittoria (Ayelet Zurer), Langdon is given four hours to track down the famed Illuminati path through the Vatican via a series of puzzles and statues. And much like The Da Vinci Code, the film seems to follow one rule: “Hurry up and wait.”

The film focuses on Langdon’s search for clues to each location, slowing the pace to a crawl before exploding again in a mad rush as each time he solves a problem it’s always with minimal time to spare. After a while it gets predictable, as Langdon’s seemingly famed problem solving abilities never kick in until just before time expires. Hanks gives a pedestrian performance once again; this is a character he could do in his sleep and at times it feels like he’s doing just that.

Angels & Demons also suffers because the story itself is rather pedestrian and generic. There’s been too many films to count that focus on saving [x] while stopping [y] that had a twist towards the end. It’s a generic formula and the film doesn’t do much to perk up besides add an exotic location to it. This is the same sort of plot one would see in a comic book film; one imagines Spiderman having to stop a bomb planted by the Green Goblin while rescuing Mary Jane en route in the same sort of manner that Langdon does. This is nothing we haven’t seen already in stronger forms.

Everything else in the film is actual quite solid. Howard’s talents behind the camera are a bit underused, again, but the film’s cinematography and scenery are superb. It’s hard to believe that most of this film wasn’t shot in the Vatican itself. A good score, and some solid action, keep the film from being completely putrid but the film itself isn’t that good. It moves quickly, though, so you really don’t notice the gaping plot holes quick enough. Howard is smart enough as a director to keep the pace, while erratic, always moving forward. People are always on the move, always running, so the atmosphere is there for a thriller albeit an artificial one.

The best comparison one could make for Angels & Demons is that it’s the equivalent middle film in the National Treasure series. You could have almost called this National Treasure: The Bible and not missed a beat.

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