"Angels & Demons" (2009) - Movie Review

Why do lead characters in films like this do not get their heads popped up by the trained perfect assassin? And when the villain needs to be apprehended, why do they stare to give the character the signal to go lose and perform instant suicide? These are questions which would laugh back at me on the naivety to view a pot boiling mixture of block buster. In “Angels & Demons” we try to stay awake quite hard when they swirl the swift car out of the way not hitting single tourists on their desperate attempt to dismantle the plans of a secret society in destroying the Vatican City. If the church go through their day in their daily prayers and other persistent approach in getting to god, the secret society is equally vehement in plotting to prove theirs. Thus it is a battle of ego paving a comfortable platform for the novel of Dan Brown taking the screen time laboriously for two hours and twenty minutes of our time. Sad part is, we pay for that wastage of lost moments.

Our professor friend Robert Langdon gets the face of Tom Hanks once again in this feature. In “The Da Vinci Code”, one of the most preposterous and ridiculous exemplifying work of carelessness, Langdon’s thought process in solving the symbols were drawn out as graphics of signs coming out of the paper or stone to reveal what the heck is the professor decoding. In this, it is all the squinting of an eye and kaboom! we have unlocked the mystery without a single detail of the history mumbled through the actions. So this time around he gets assistance from a female scientist Vittoria (Ayelet Zurer) who helped in the creation of “antimatter” which is going to do a big bang theory into reality when it becomes unstable. Thus the greatest symbolic detonating device for the villains in “Angels & Demons”.

There is no need for a customary scenes of sparkling smile and a calm touch to a kid (for that microsecond scene) to prove his angelic presence of Ewan McGregor as Camerlango Patrick McKenna. A soft voice and being the pet for the deceased pope is good enough to firm his characterization. For the rest of it, well Ewan just walks with that spotless face and making sure Langdon gets his deal in unlocking the puzzles so that he can save the four cardinals who are the favourite to be the next pope and finally to save the city from being swallowed by the ironically named “God’s Particle”. Uffff! Lot of work. Lot of time, subtracted from our lives.

So begins the hunt for the clues and hopefully get them to the place just in time to see the old dudes die in different forms with “Illuminati” symbol. There are the paper card character doing their duties. First is the Vatican Security chief Commander Richter (Skellan Skarsgård). He would be the doubtful guy ready to block the proceedings and blindly following the rules of the book. Then would be the suspicious looking people within. That would be Cardinal Strauss (Armin Mueller-Stahl) who has claimed the fame to take the characters shady and good at the same time. His assistant Father Simeon (Cosimo Fusco) to further make sure the “doubts” are strong. And the aiding guards for Langdon and Vittoria are Inspector Olivetti (Pierfrancesco Favino) and his subordinate.

And for the sake of it they bring the topic of science and religion constantly battling with of course neither a resolve nor to instigate a good discussion. But you did not come here for the argument and not a clear winner to be strong about your belief. We came here for the Langdon taking us through the tour of Vatican and along with the history and unbelievable puzzles. Which Hanks does when he smirks at the ignorance of the Vatican guards not knowing their history. And carefully gets into the archives with Vittoria and then sheepishly cops out when she rips of a historic page from the publications of Galileo. Once that is done, the film puts itself comfortably in to default path of predictable outcomes.

Ron Howard and Tom Hanks surprise me with their unrelenting effort to resurrect Dan Brown’s novels on to the big screen. What do they see in these stories which makes them to recreate it? Clearly there is not a single serious take on the divided opinion of science and religion. And the thrill ride and adventure are worse than Nicolas Cage’s “National Treasure”. It is long and .......loooong. I almost fell asleep and put aside my own belief and prayed the non-existent power to let these underdog heroes find the antimatter and then tell them who is the mastermind behind these whole thing so that we can worry about the money spent driving back to our home.

!!!!!Spoiler Alert !!!!!!
Hollywood Secrecy Code # 11910 - If a mere supporting character is casted by a genuinely cherubic known face such as Ewan McGregor, then the possibility of him being the culprit is imminent.

Of course I did not know what are the intentions of Ewan’s character were but I knew he was the man not at the very moment the film introduces the character but the very first time I saw the trailer of “Angels & Demons” few months back.