moviereview - Angels and Demons

moviereview

ANGELS AND DEMONS

	The Vatican seeks help from symbologist Dr Robert Langdon when a terrorist threatens Catholic faith with an anti-matter bomb.	score 2	moviereview rates films from 1 (unwatchable) to 5 (unmissable)
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Cast
Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Vittoria Vetra, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Stellan Skarsgard

Director
Ron Howard

Screenwriter
David Koepp,
Akiva Goldsman

Country
USA

Rating / Running Time
M / 137 minutes

Australian Release
May 2009

Official Site

You can almost hear the committee meeting – shouty voices and high fives flying with producers demanding ‘Countdowns. We want lots of countdowns!’ Which is exactly what Ron Howard gives them with one big bomb that will take out the Vatican in under five hours, and four more ticking clocks as cardinals are scheduled for slaughter on the hour between now and then. Why? Because the committee wants chases, lots of them! It’s an action film, geddit?

Granted Dan Brown’s page-turning prequel to The Da Vinci Code was hooked on the quasi-religious cliff-hanger, forcing exactly that kind of hyperactive, frequently nonsensical action. Lots of squealing tyres and exclamatory conversations – ‘It’s a pentagram!’ cries symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), helpfully pointing at a pentagram. He’s been invited by the Vatican to decipher and hopefully prevent a plot to destroy the heart of Catholic faith. That the evil-doers are doing it with anti-matter is the first of many moments that force you to wonder if you’ve wandered into a Bond movie by mistake.

As the plot deceptively twists and turns with Langdon running around Rome like a tourist on steroids, Angels And Demons begins to collapse under the weight of its own self-importance. Compared to TV’s Spooks that makes similar hokum palatable with a subtle nod to camera, this remains stubbornly and chronically unaware. While Howard doles out Brown’s wayward theology in vain, there’s an argument that this bloated twaddle is entertainment, until Ewan McGregor’s priest jumps the shark and propels a helicopter skyward to save St Peters. “Be careful, these are men of God,” warns Langdon’s ad-hoc assistant. By then, it’s far too late.

// COLIN FRASER