Critics and Catholic leaders alike have panned Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons for defaming the Catholic Church and littering itself with historical inaccuracies. Never fear though. Audiences with even the slightest bit of discernment will understand immediately what they are in for when watching this sequel to 2006’s The Da Vinci Code: pure fiction. What the film does is create a space for believers and agnostics alike: It asks us to respect the mystery of things that are unknown, and portrays the church as sympathetic and pro-science.
It’s a film that works because for what it gets wrong it unapolagetically makes up for in frenetic fast-paced energy. Requiring us to take extreme liberties with history, religion and science the script stays true to its pop fiction roots. It’s a more tightly directed and cleverly plotted version of the original, but don’t be tricked by all the high profile actors attached- it’s still not a series that prides itself in characters. There is little to be explored in Robert Langdon, but a far-fetched maze of theories regarding the Catholic Church and its secret heretical sects fuel his tromp around the Vatican City with a beautiful but less than important co-star.
The Vatican City is only recently mourning the sudden passing of the pope when a group of scientists become the victims of the theft of a dangerous vial of antimatter. Fearing a threat from the ancient underground society known as Illuminati , the Vatican requests the help of Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) in order to stave off further harm. The top four contenders for the new chair (Preferrati) have been kidnapped by the Illuminati and threatened to be offed every hour leading up to midnight. Remember that vial I mentioned earlier? At the stroke of 12, the battery life that the vial is running on will expire and the Vatican city will go up in a blaze far bigger than any black or white smoke from St. Peter’s square.
The circumstances though dire, seem to have been created for no other discernable reason than revenge for years past of the Church’s silencing of great scientific thinkers i.e. Galileo. That and the obvious need for an exciting plot of course. The real reason is not even a side-note for a script such as this, because what really matters is that the trap has been set, and now Langdon must race across the city trying to locate the undisclosed location of each of the four cardinals. Thankfully the enemy is at least kind enough to point to a series of ancient clues used to help Langdon on his search, and lucky for us, he seems to be remarkably savvy at stumbling across them. But again, to ask such obvious questions of how or why is, according to Dan Brown, to completely miss the point.
Yes the plot of this film is completely preposterous, but it is also quite entertaining. It doesn’t ask us to buy anything we see save for 2hrs. of investment in the wildly outlandish plot. It is also a Ron Howard film, and here he does what he does best, making Hollywood pop that is cleverly paced and easy to watch. Just don’t expect to learn anything about history. If you want that, head to the library because after all, that’s not why you’re sitting in a movie theater on a summer day in the first place.
3/5
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