Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
5/21/09
I really, really wish I liked
the cinematic adventures of Robert Langdon, the symbologist chronicled
in a series of bestsellers by Dan Brown. They've got a lot of things
I like, from the starpower of Tom Hanks to mysteries that require the intricate
deconstruction of puzzles and history. But Angels & Demons
is the second Langdon movie in a row (following the hype-a-thon The
Da Vinci Code, which I remember mostly for having attracted the biggest
crowd of picketers I've ever passed on the way into a theater) to leave
me cold. Langdon himself is much improved, written with more motivation
and acted with more zip, and the story has all kinds of potential.
But that promise dissipates in a cloud of repetition and a climax that
feels totally random. Angels & Demons has a completely
different set of problems than its' predecessor, but it ends up in roughly
the same place: as a glossy, well-acted near-miss.
In Vatican City, the Pope
has died. After nine days of mourning, it is time for a conclave
of Cardinals to select his successor, presumably from among one of four
popular Cardinals designated the Preferati. But they have been kidnapped
and a vial of experimental antimatter has been stolen from a research facility
in Geneva and brought to the Vatican by persons unknown. They announce
themselves as the Illuminati, the presumed long-dead secret society of
scientists and scholars wiped out by a Vatican crackdown. Now, they
have returned with a threat to kill one Cardinal each hour from 8 to 11
pm and then detonate the antimatter at midnight, wiping out the seat of
Catholic power. The Church turns to an old adversary, Robert Langdon
(Tom Hanks), who's been denied access to the Vatican archives to complete
a book on the Illuminati due to that whole Da Vinci Code thing. He
is rushed to Vatican City by Inspector Olivetti (Pierfrancesco Favino),
who believes he can help, an opinion not shared by hard-line Commander
Richter (Stellan Skarsgard), leader of the Vatican's elite Swiss Guard.
Also on hand is Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), leader of the antimatter
experiment who hopes to find and neutralize the device before its' battery
runs out. Langdon knows his Illuminati lore, and quickly figures
out their intention to murder the Preferati at four churches that made
up an ancient trail to find the Illuminati's own secret church where the
bomb is hidden. And so the chase begins, with murders tied to the
four original elements of science (Earth, Air, Fire and Water) ticking
down to the ultimate demonstration of the power of science over religion.
On Langdon's side is Camerlengo Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor), who runs
the office of the Pope until a successor is found. But their desire
to evacuate is thwarted by the Chief Elector Cardinal Strauss (Armin Mueller-Stahl),
for whom the loss of the Prefarati might just create an opportunity to
become Pope himself. That means the only way to save Vatican City
and everyone waiting for the white smoke to announce a new pope is to solve
the Illuminati's puzzles before it's too late.
In theory, Angels &
Demons is custom-made to counter the lethargy of The Da Vinci Code's
plot by forcing Langdon to do his thing on a deadline with thousands of
lives at stake. And for a while, it works. The problem is that
Brown and screenwriters David Koep and Akiva Goldsman have turned the device
into less of a challenge than a schedule, requiring the symbologist to
show up at a new church every hour on the hour, either just on time or
just too late to prevent a murder or an antimatter detonation. And
Ron Howard doesn't have a lot of luck making us feel the race against the
clock. Night falls like an guillotine around 9:30, going from middle
of the day to pitch black, and people move around on foot and in cars with
speed that would make 24's Jack Bauer envious. There's also
a key moment late in the game where two characters are on parallel tracks
one of which seems to take about 10 minutes and the other about 45 with
both ending up in the same room at the same time. And don't get me
started on the digital display for the Anti-Matter chamber's battery:
it seems to contain 5 bars for the first 10 hours of power and 5 more for
the last 10 minutes. It doesn't help matters that Hans Zimmer's score
knows only two settings, subliminal and ear-shattering bombast.
Even so, the movie's been
mildly entertaining up until about 11:55 pm thanks to strong characters
and performances across the board. By taking a book the originally
precedes Da Vinci in the series and moving its' events after, Koep
and Goldsman find a wonderful hook for the less-than-scintillating Langdon:
his movie world is now filled with people who hate him for unmasking the
misogynist church conspiracy at the heart of The Da Vinci Code just
as much as so many people in the real world hate Brown for having written
the book. Reacting to people's distrust and contempt gives Hanks
a cool pushing-off point, and he uses it to give Langdon an air of academic
superiority that's kinda fun. And the writers also give him something
of an arc in regards to his positions on the Vatican and religion in general.
Zurer's efficiently surly performance also fits in with the feistier tone.
On the Vatican side, McGregor
shows off his gift for seeming pure-hearted, and Mueller-Stahl his for
seeming officiously odious. Skarsgard is outstanding in what
could have been a stock role, showing us how Richter's knee-jerk hatred
of Langdon flows not only from a deep religious conviction but also a love
of what the church provides for the physical world. I also need to
provide a shout-out for the excellent performance by Thure Lindhardt in
a smallish role as a Swiss Guard officer who shadows Langdon whenever he's
poking around the Vatican's treasures.
***SPOILER ALERT:
I'M NOT GOING TO GIVE IT AWAY, BUT I'M GOING TO HINT AT THE ENDING*** But
for all the movie gets into a rut and doesn't exactly pulse with suspense,
my biggest problem is the ending, which delivers a twist almost identical
to the one in this spring's State of Play.
And it has pretty much the same effect: sure, I didn't see it coming,
but I'm not sure what the point of 75% of what I just saw was once it arrives.
Plus, both twists seem specifically designed to call out audience members
who believe in the possibility of Institutional Virtue as suckers.***END
OF SPOILERS***
The Summer Movie Season is
all about alternating popcorn awesomeness with Big-Budget Stuff That Doesn't
Quite Work. Angels & Demons is the later, 2-plus hours
of rote suspense that's easy to take but kinda pointless to have taken.
But just watch me be there on opening night in a couple years when Langdon
takes on the Freemasons in the upcoming Lost Symbol. Hey,
it sounds like a great idea! |
