Angels and Demons: A Review

It’s rare that I’m moved to write a film review. It’s also rare that I’m moved to speak negatively of a film I’ve seen. I’m pretty easy to please, and I’m definitely easy to entertain. I usually go into a movie with low expectations, and because of that, I usually enjoy what I see.

There have been exceptions. Two come to mind: Mister Holland’s Opus, which manipulated me emotionally and made me feel used, and Bicentennial Man, which did pretty much the same thing, just with a plot that spanned two-hundred years instead of sixty. I still cringe when I think of them.

But most of the time, I tend to enjoy films I go to see. I go for the entertainment value, not to delve into the minutiae of filmmaking, plotting, or dialogue, though I can examine any of those in great detail if I’m so inclined. A bad script will pull me out of the movie’s world quicker than you can say “cliché.”

I can think of two examples, one recent and one near-recent, where I thoroughly enjoyed a film that did not, by and large, get good reviews. The recent example is X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which was a helluva ride, and really gave me a lot of bang for my buck. I liked it. I’m not going to say I loved it, but I really liked it. It was fun, and it had some great moments and great performances.

The less recent example is The Da Vince Code. I can hear you grumbling already. This film got so much bad press and bad word of mouth, that I don’t think I could have gone into it with my expectations any lower. I wanted to see it anyway, because I liked the book, and I’m a fan of both Ron Howard and Tom Hanks. And you know what? I enjoyed it. I thought it was neat take on the book, and, talky or not, I thought it got its point across. And I didn’t give a tinker’s damn about Tom Hanks’ hair. It was different, but it didn’t bother me like it did some folks.

So, you might wonder, having read the previous two paragraphs, does this guy have any discerning taste in movies at all? Well, to be honest, I sorta wonder about that myself sometimes. Am I too easily entertained? Do I have no standards at all?

Well, yes, as it turns out, I do. And that was brought home to me in full regalia when I went to see Angels and Demons last night.

This, friends, was a bad movie. It rankled me on so many levels, I don’t even think I can count them all. I will, however, try.

They lost me right from the beginning. If I had seen one more swooping, spinning, CGI cutaway shot of the innards of the CERN particle accelerator (you did know that’s what that was, right? I mean, the filmmakers didn’t tell us), I would have hurled my just-eaten spanikopita dinner over the rail of the balcony and onto some poor, unsuspecting soul below. I just wanted them to get to the bloody point.

A quick break for SF fans: Carmen Argenziano, who played Samantha Carter’s father on Stargate SG-1 was in the CERN scenes. I would like to have seen more of him, but his character was murdered within the first ten minutes of the film (but it seemed more like twenty with all the CGI cutaway shots).

The camera spins, swoops, jiggles, and generally acts like an ADHD child on a sugar rush throughout most of the film. Interestingly, the camera behaves similarly in the new Star Trek film, but it makes sense aboard a starship that’s being pummeled by energy weapons. Here, it just seems like the filmmakers want Robert Langdon and company to move at warp speed. Well, they’re not. They’re just rushing through the streets of Rome.

And Rome does look great. The cinematography in this film is quite beautiful indeed, but unfortunately it does not make up for a script that is not so much dialogue as a moving history lesson spoken by multiple instructors.

There is no character development. We get no glimpses of Robert Langdon’s personality as we did in The Da Vinci Code. Here he’s just the tour guide, the facilitator, the guy who tells us what’s going on. I felt like I was watching PBS, and Rick Steeves had taken some really good drugs before taking us on his latest tour of historical Rome. Come to think of it, Steeves would probably have been more entertaining and engaging in this film than Hanks is.

We need Langdon’s facilitation, however. This film moves so fast, covering so much territory in such a short time, that without the expert’s commentary, we’d be lost, our heads spinning lopsidedly on our necks. Hell, I read the book, and I was nearly lost part of the time. What did he just say? What was that?

Which brings me to another point. I couldn’t understand what they were saying half the time. Except for Hanks and Ewan MacGregor, the principal players all had European accents of some kind or another, some of them quite heavy. This made it damnably difficult to make out what was being said, especially in the context of the film’s frenetic pace. It was a relief when the characters spoke in their native tongues, because at least then I could read the subtitles.

Even some of Hanks’ and MacGregor’s lines got lost in the sound mix. I kept saying to myself, “Boy, I’m glad I read the book,” but only when I wasn’t saying, “Boy, I hope this is over soon.”

The character of Vittoria Vetra, played by Ayelet Zurer, fared pretty badly in this adaptation. She’s basically there to be the scientist, to look pretty, and to interject questions and speculations when Langdon is explaining stuff, so we don’t have to hear his voice all the time. But mostly to look pretty. Which she does. She’s lovely, in fact, but that doesn’t help her character at all. She’s scientific window dressing.

Even the romantic part of the story is dropped here. In the book, Langdon and Vittoria develop a chemistry, and, at the end, a romance. No time for that here, though. Too many stops on the tour, and this bus has gotta move! Come on people! We’ve got five ancient churches to see, and just over two hours to do it! Work with me here!

Deep breath.

You know you’re in a bad film when almost all of the dialogue serves as exposition. And there’s a lot of exposition to get through in this one. Practically every word out of Langdon’s mouth is a history sound bite. And, as I mentioned, when Langdon’s not explaining, Vittoria is asking questions that we might ask, just to help us along. Most of their conversations end up going something like this:

Langdon: “It must be in the Necropolis!”
Vittoria: “You mean the crypt?”
Langdon: “Yes, the place where they bury the dead popes!”

It’s nearly laughable. Actually, it is laughable when you think how much it sounds like an exchange from Airplane:

“You’re needed in the cockpit.”
“The cockpit? What is it?”
“It’s that little room at the front of the plane, but that’s not important right now.”

The other thing that made me chuckle several times was the sheer speed with which Langdon figures things out. No sooner do they arrive at the next location in their quest than Langdon is blurting out: “The angels! They’re pointing west. That means our next stop is… Somebody get me a map of all the churches in Rome. Now!” The sheer number of “Aha! That’s it! It has to be!” moments is absolutely ludicrous. In a novel, you have space to breathe, space to think, space to read about what’s going on and see the thought processes at work, even if it is a race against time. In a film (even a one-hundred-thirty-eight minute one) you don’t have any of those luxuries. The bus is leaving! Now!

Like I said, warp speed. There’s hardly a moment to take a breath, and when that rare moment does come around, it’s a blessed relief. There are some good scenes in this film, especially between Hanks and MacGregor, both of whom are top-notch actors doing the best they can with a really lame script. The quiet moments are the best parts of this film, and were it not for the dictatorial tour schedule, we might have seen more of them.

And even that’s not the worst of it. To top it all off, and to add insult to injury, they had to go and spell out, just in case you didn’t know, that this is all about religion vs. science. Even in that, all subtlety was cast aside. The dialogue, when it wasn’t teaching us about history, was telling us what a great chasm there is between the church and the scientific community. C’mon guys. We could have figured that out without all the ham-handed dialogue. Give your audience at least a little credit.

And the one bit of character insight they tried to give us was pathetic. Was Langdon struggling with his own spirituality? Was he just trying not to say anything that would insult the clergymen? Or had he just had a really bad batch of linguine for lunch? We may never know.

I don’t like five- and ten-point rating systems; actually, I don’t like rating systems at all, but if I were forced, at gunpoint, in a darkened cathedral, with Robert Langdon spouting endless reams of history into my ear, to rate this film, I would give it a three out of ten. A little bit for the cinematography, a little bit for Ewan MacGregor doing an Irish accent, and a little bit for the really cool helicopter/explosion scene at the end. Other than that, I was bored. Yes, folks, bored.

The book was a thousand times better.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave the light on.

–Eric