Movie Review: Angels and Demons

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh. I giveth him my $12.00 for a seat at “Angels and Demons” and he taketh away more than 2 hours of my time. I guess the first misstep was agreeing to see the movie. But, I half tricked myself because I hadn’t read the book (to clarify I flipped through “The Da Vinci Code” but found it so badly written I couldn’t start it nor could I sit through the film) and so I told myself that maybe this one would be better. Tom Hanks plays Professor Langston; an East Coast, Ivy League academic who has dedicated his life to symbols. This is code for describing a man who has an annoying habit of noticing and remembering everything. We know he’s responsible because the Professor works out at 5 am (and let me guess that we’re supposed to extrapolate that he works out every morning because it’s good for him and helps him remember and notice EVERYTHING). And sure, we can see he is benignly cute, but the character is so bland and humorless that I spent a good portion of the movie worrying about his sad private life. What does the Professor do other than notice and remember everything? Not much? If he applied thia technique to meeting a lady, he would have some lucky gal eating out of his hand. Who wouldn’t want to meet a man who has a slavish attention to what they ate 6 months ago? The name of their favorite lip gloss and shoe size…. Digression. It’s amazing that Hanks agreed to play Robert Langston again. From what I heard and read, others found the character in “The Da Vinci Code” similarly flat. This is not like James Bond – he doesn’t improve with age, nor could I imagine another actor bringing another, more likable or even more entertaining interpretation to the character.

Now, to be upfront, I am not a religious person and at times I do feel a mixture of embarrassment about my ignorance. But I also feel a curiosity about matters that stirs such great devotion, hatred, study and adulation the world over. So, I am not going to say a word about whether this movie is offensive to Catholics or atheists. Nor am I going to try to guess what Dan Brown and Ron Howard are trying to say. Me thinks that in a movie involving the rise of secret sects, the killing and torture of Cardinals, atom smashing, faulty air conditioning and archival systems and liberal use of tourist maps, and fetishistic application of fire, I don’t know if they know either.

What I do know is that no one is who they seem to be because most of the characters are EVILLY hiding their tattoo loving, off the richter chart hate for the church or stupidly feigning smartness to hide the fat that they don’t know anything. This stinks because they only to learn or half learn what they learn at the last minute before getting killed or even attempt to shoot a gun at someone they think might tell them something moment before getting killed. This is hurting me now.

So let’s reach the foregone conclusion that this is not a movie worth seeing. However, there is one part of the movie that deserves a mention – the scene at the St. Peter’s Square in which Bernini’s incredible embracing architecture is highlighted. Now, at this point a massive explosive occurs (and yes, I was hopeful that this signaled the near end of the movie. My prayers were foresaken.) I haven’t witnessed a scene of such destruction since they took the lid off of The Ark of the Covenant in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. Now that was some naturally-come-to-destruction which leveled people, raked the walls quicker that a Vegas hooker and generally made you fear whatever force was in that damn Ark for so many thousands of years.

Yes, I know the cause of the explosion in “Angels and Demons” was from a different source, but come on – whoever did the CGI here asked their 7 year old what they thought would happen if a big, big, big “like the biggest explosion ever” occurred. Here is the most likely answer: “Uhmmm, cars would turn over and flip, flip, flip and the people would say ‘Noooooooooooooo, ouch!’ and then the sky would look rippley like the pond at Aiden’s house”… Guess what the CGI”s look like?? However, the best part arrived long after the movie ended and I was (trying to) recount the plot to my husband. He told me that he has a friend who loves movies with helicopters that blow up and said friend was to be all the more thrilled to learn that the craft WASN”T EVEN PILOTED.

So miraculously, for Sir Ben, this movie may be heaven-sent!