Angels and Demons
I choose you, Pikachu!Kicking off my summer movie review series is Angels and Demons. My first reviews will be a little late since this blog is starting after the beginning of the movie season, but I promise to catch up. I saw this film with my sister on May 16th. I went in with pretty low expectations since I was greatly underwhelmed by The Da Vinci Code and had only heard mediocre reviews about Angels and Demons. However, I had read the book awhile ago and pegged it as my favorite of Dan Brown's novels. Therefore, I felt obligated to see how it translated to film.
I told Katie after the movie that going in I only remembered the following three things about the book:
1. There is some science center type place involved in the plot in the beginning.
2. People die by the elements.
3. The bad guy turns out to be someone who was close to the main characters.
Luckily, these things were included, so I was satisfied enough that the movie "stayed true to the book."
The plot of the movie is that after the current pope dies, religious officials gather at the Vatican to elect a new pope, but find that their four best candidates have been kidnapped by the Illuminati. The Illuminati are followers of science that were hunted down by the Catholic church a long time ago, and are now seeking their revenge by killing off one pope candidate every hour, finishing with an explosion of an anti-matter bomb somewhere within the walls of the Vatican. Yeah, I know. Kind of confusing. This anti-matter bomb was created by a team at some scientific institute, led by Vittoria Vetra, the only female character in the movie. Vetra comes to the Vatican and assists Tom Hank's character in tracking down the four Cardinals before they are murdered by following the rumored "Path of Illumination."
Apparently, following a trail laid out hundreds of years ago is hard to do in an hour, and sure enough, the Cardinals start dying left and right by the elements the Illuminati revered.
Sometimes I felt like they should have just skipped ahead to the last element and worked their way back to ensure at least a couple would be saved. You'll have to check out the movie yourself to see if any of the doomed Cardinals made it.
The acting was....meh. I thought Vittoria's character was pretty pointless. She would have been okay to use in the beginning, but being with Tom Hanks was ridiculous. She just finished his sentences most of the time and it felt as though they were sharing a single acting part. Ewan McGreggor was cute as always, but seemed weak and suspicious most of the time. By the middle of the movie, you kind of suspect everyone as the evil mastermind behind the plot, but they keep you guessing pretty well. They also try to distract you from guessing by setting up elaborate murder sequences and continuing the search for the anti-matter bomb (mostly by shutting down power grids one by one to isolate it's location).
One of my favorite characters was the guard assigned to watch over Langdon and Vetra when they were down at the Archives. He provided comic relief and seemed to have more depth than the main characters. I also felt the assasin did a pretty good job. He was a modern Silas (Da Vinci Code), and always gave off the creepy and threatening vibe. His exit from the movie was predicatable, but it fit in okay with the plot.
The movie was pretty good. I would give it the typical 3 stars (out of 5), meaning that one should go see it, but once is definitely enough. The movie would have been better if it could keep its momentum. It sometimes slowed down way too much, and I found myself glancing at my watch wondering how much was left. They also could have spent more time on character development instead of focusing so much energy on action sequences. Even though this might contradict with my first critique about it being slow, I feel you can develop characters in a non-boring way. They pretty much jumped right into the story from the beginning, but maybe taking 5 minutes to see how the characters acted before the craziness would have created a connection with the audience so that we actually rooted for the good guys to save the day.
I told Katie after the movie that going in I only remembered the following three things about the book:
1. There is some science center type place involved in the plot in the beginning.
2. People die by the elements.
3. The bad guy turns out to be someone who was close to the main characters.
Luckily, these things were included, so I was satisfied enough that the movie "stayed true to the book."
The plot of the movie is that after the current pope dies, religious officials gather at the Vatican to elect a new pope, but find that their four best candidates have been kidnapped by the Illuminati. The Illuminati are followers of science that were hunted down by the Catholic church a long time ago, and are now seeking their revenge by killing off one pope candidate every hour, finishing with an explosion of an anti-matter bomb somewhere within the walls of the Vatican. Yeah, I know. Kind of confusing. This anti-matter bomb was created by a team at some scientific institute, led by Vittoria Vetra, the only female character in the movie. Vetra comes to the Vatican and assists Tom Hank's character in tracking down the four Cardinals before they are murdered by following the rumored "Path of Illumination."
Apparently, following a trail laid out hundreds of years ago is hard to do in an hour, and sure enough, the Cardinals start dying left and right by the elements the Illuminati revered.
Sometimes I felt like they should have just skipped ahead to the last element and worked their way back to ensure at least a couple would be saved. You'll have to check out the movie yourself to see if any of the doomed Cardinals made it.
The acting was....meh. I thought Vittoria's character was pretty pointless. She would have been okay to use in the beginning, but being with Tom Hanks was ridiculous. She just finished his sentences most of the time and it felt as though they were sharing a single acting part. Ewan McGreggor was cute as always, but seemed weak and suspicious most of the time. By the middle of the movie, you kind of suspect everyone as the evil mastermind behind the plot, but they keep you guessing pretty well. They also try to distract you from guessing by setting up elaborate murder sequences and continuing the search for the anti-matter bomb (mostly by shutting down power grids one by one to isolate it's location).
One of my favorite characters was the guard assigned to watch over Langdon and Vetra when they were down at the Archives. He provided comic relief and seemed to have more depth than the main characters. I also felt the assasin did a pretty good job. He was a modern Silas (Da Vinci Code), and always gave off the creepy and threatening vibe. His exit from the movie was predicatable, but it fit in okay with the plot.
The movie was pretty good. I would give it the typical 3 stars (out of 5), meaning that one should go see it, but once is definitely enough. The movie would have been better if it could keep its momentum. It sometimes slowed down way too much, and I found myself glancing at my watch wondering how much was left. They also could have spent more time on character development instead of focusing so much energy on action sequences. Even though this might contradict with my first critique about it being slow, I feel you can develop characters in a non-boring way. They pretty much jumped right into the story from the beginning, but maybe taking 5 minutes to see how the characters acted before the craziness would have created a connection with the audience so that we actually rooted for the good guys to save the day.
I like the caption for the first picture ;)
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