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'Angels & Demons': ridiculous plotlines, gratuitous violence and bad Belfast accents

A movie review of Tom Hanks' new film

By
CAHIR O’DOHERTY,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Friday, May 15, 2009, 9:28 AM
Updated Wednesday, October 20, 2010, 11:55 AM

 

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Tom Hanks and Ayelet Zurer in "Angels & Demons"
Tom Hanks and Ayelet Zurer in "Angels & Demons"

Our own Father Tim "reviews" Angels & Demons

“Angels & Demons”, Dan Brown’s flashy sequel to “The Da Vinci Code,” is directed at a breakneck speed by director Ron Howard for good reason – if you actually stopped to think about what you’re were looking at you’d probably leave the cinema long before the closing credits.

Let’s face it, exploding cars and gothic murder scenes appeal to many cinema goers, and there’s plenty of them here, but they can’t stop you from realizing within the first 10 minutes of the film that the plot is completely preposterous.

In Brown’s overheated conspiracy thriller, a secret 300-year-old fraternity of anti-clerical radicals called The Illuminati may (or may not) be plotting to kill the four cardinals favored to succeed the Pope. One by one these unfortunate holy men turn up dead in increasingly theatrical settings around Rome.

Enter Robert Langdon, the Harvard-based symbologist (played by a tight lipped Tom Hanks) who’s reluctantly called in by the Vatican to interpret the fiendish note - the Illuminati have sent them as a high-handed "catch me if you can" taunt.

Langdon decodes symbols like some gifted people decode MTA bus timetables. He’s a quick thinker, too, but not quite quick enough to prevent the first three cardinals from going to their heavenly rewards.

Director Howard fills almost every frame of his film with suspense, soaring camera work and ominous music, and when those start to flag, he’s not above indulging in a bit of gratuitous violence. The important thing, apparently, is to prevent the audience from thinking about what they’re looking at. Fair enough.

For all of its discussions about art, history, faith and intolerance, in the end you’re left with a sort of high-budget episode of "Scooby Doo." When the real villain is finally unmasked you almost wish he would say “And I would have gotten away with it too if it hadn't’t been for you pesky symboligists!” It wouldn’t alter the tone of the film, and it would certainly be more honest about its pulpy ambitions.

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