Angels and Demons

Probably many will disagree with the first sentence of my review, but I really disliked the film version of The Da Vinci Code. I enjoyed the book, and I simply couldn't find it anywhere in the movie. Now a confession: I haven't read Angels and Demons, and I have no plans to. Perhaps this influences my assessment of the film; but if so, so what? For whatever reason, I liked it a lot. I enjoyed seeing Hanks in the role of Robert Langdon this time, Ayelet Zurer taught me a new respect for particle physics, and Ewan McGregor (one of my favorite actors) turned in a terrific performance. The Rome locations were well used, and there was an amazing scene toward the end in St. Peter's Square involving a helicopter. For a blockbuster summer picture, this one has some brains to go along with the brawn. I say unto you it's worth seeing. Amen.


ANGELS AND DEMONS

Angels and Demons is about 100 times better than The Da Vinci Code. Director Ron Howard’s puzzling 2006 adaptation of Code, Dan Brown’s monster bestseller about a secret Catholic organization’s attempt to suppress the “true” history of Jesus, turned a superior potboiler into an inferior one with depressing ease. Code still raked in enough money to make the Vatican envious, but fans worldwide felt sinned against. Now comes the expected sequel, drawn from Brown’s other novel about cover-ups in the Catholic Church, and lo, like water turned into wine, it’s a refreshing surprise.

Angels and Demons is, at its best, an expert genre film. Strip away all the arcane church lore and the End-of-Days portents and you find an old-fashioned race-against-time thriller, executed with confidence and skill. Thankfully, it’s more of an action pic than its stultifying predecessor, and a pretty good mystery into the bargain. Red herrings are scattered about like loaves and fishes, so the audience has plenty to chew on while waiting for the plot’s final revelations.

A beloved pope has died and the conclave of cardinals is gathering in Rome to choose his successor. While they are preparing to sequester themselves in the Vatican, however, four of them are kidnapped—the four favorites to become the next pope, or “preferitti”—and an ominous message is sent to Vatican officials, warning of their deaths and the ultimate destruction of the Church. Meanwhile, in a research facility elsewhere in Italy, a team of physicists achieves a scientific breakthrough by creating antimatter in a massive collider. No sooner have they succeeded than a mysterious intruder infiltrates the facility and steals a critical portion of it, killing one of the scientists in the process. When the missing vial of antimatter turns up in Rome as part of the threat against the Church, the Vatican has a problem worthy of Hollywood’s attention.

And Robert Langdon’s. Langdon (portrayed once again by Tom Hanks) is the Harvard professor of religion and “symbology” expert who, despite having embarrassed the Catholic Church in his previous adventure, possesses skills so uniquely suited to helping the Vatican in its current crisis that they have no choice but to turn to him. It’s the kind of antagonistic partnership that thrillers have thrived on since Alfred Hitchcock’s formula-making The 39 Steps (1935), and Howard and his screenwriters (David Koepp, Akiva Goldsman) demonstrate they are attentive students of the Master.

The key to the plot is a secret society known as the “Illuminati,” free-thinking intellectuals from centuries past who questioned Church doctrine and were severely persecuted (think Galileo), many even put to death. It seems some remnants of the Illuminati still exist, and they have regrouped for their long-awaited vengeance. Each of the kidnapped cardinals will be executed in a public place one hour apart, according to their plan, which will culminate in their release of the antimatter, producing an explosion forceful enough to destroy Vatican City and half of Rome. Langdon has his work cut out for him, since he has only a few hours to interpret clues in the kidnappers’ messages that will lead him to the various locations where the cardinals are to die, and eventually to the hiding place of the antimatter. As if this weren’t enough, Langdon has to do it all while contending with a suspicious Vatican security chief (Stellan Skarsgard), who may or may not be undercutting his efforts, and the enigmatic Camerlengo Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor), the Vatican official who temporarily wields the late pope’s authority. Fortunately, the Hitchcock formula provides him with the able assistance of a beautiful woman, Dr. Vittoria Vetra (Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer), the physicist in charge of the antimatter project. She has been called to Rome to help find the missing vial and keep it from detonating. Other duties include looking great in a trim black dress and making flirtatious eye contact with Hanks. I’m assuming he appreciated it.

This is pulpy, improbable stuff, kept alive by faith, I guess, but also by works: a breakneck pace and razor-sharp timing. It doesn’t hurt that Hanks’ Langdon can make deductions so quickly it would put Sherlock Holmes to shame; this ability keeps the audience off balance and willing to accept anything he says just so they don’t get left behind. Well, and why not? What I especially liked about this movie is that at least Hanks and Howard are having fun this time. The dour Da Vinci Code felt joyless, afraid to breathe--the current film exhales noisily, and it’s a blessing. Hanks will probably never be anyone’s ideal Robert Langdon, but he’s settled into the role and seems much more comfortable the second time around. He’s even relaxed enough to flash traces of the wiseass humor that’s been his trademark since he began his illustrious film career two decades ago in Splash (also directed by Howard), and before that on TV in Bosom Buddies.

Angels definitely qualifies as a summer action blockbuster, but it has a spiritual side to it as well. Nestled behind the elaborate rituals of the suspense thriller is a sober study (though I assume a highly fictionalized one) of Vatican politics and protocol surrounding the election of a new pope. The central conflict in this embedded story is between the Camerlengo and Cardinal Strauss (Armin Mueller-Stahl), leader of the conclave. Theirs is a quiet, and one suspects, longstanding duel over control of the papacy, the future of the Church, and even the nature of the God they both serve. While Langdon and company race around Rome trying to protect the body of the Church, these two men struggle to save its soul, speaking feelingly to each other about how it can survive the destruction set to occur. But their views are opposed, the aged cardinal insisting on the necessity of tradition and the young priest arguing for the inevitability of change, and it is this debate that gives a deeper urgency to the film than the kind supplied by narrow escapes and last-minute rescues. A parable of faith woven into a tale of worldly intrigue, Mueller-Stahl’s and McGregor’s soft-spoken but intense exchanges provide the film’s emotional core. Both actors are excellent, giving subtly veiled performances that lend voice to their characters’ convictions while masking the motives behind them. As our perception of those motives changes throughout the course of the film, it becomes apparent that their dialogue has more to do with the events unfolding around them than we first supposed. And it is through the twists and turns of their evolving relationship that the meaning of the film’s title is finally revealed.

Through the plot’s many convolutions, Howard’s direction displays more than its usual serviceability, guiding the activity with enough assurance to make one believe at times the film has style, although it's really just bravado. He’s a successful but rather ordinary filmmaker who has achieved stature in Hollywood by constantly overreaching, tackling subjects complex enough to pull him out of his comfort zone and elevate the level of his achievement. I admire him for it, but only occasionally do I find one of his films truly satisfying--Cocoon comes to mind, and Parenthood, the underrated Cinderella Man, and certainly Apollo 13, his greatest artistic success to date. The angels are on his side with this current choice—let us pray that Da Vinci’s demons are at last safely behind him.