|
 Is
it wrong that I suddenly think slightly less of my parish priest because
I’ve never seen him fly a helicopter? After watching director Ron
Howard’s adaptation of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, I think the
Vatican ought to make aviation training a requirement of the priesthood
along with that whole celibacy thing.
What was originally the
prequel to the smashing success, The Da Vinci Code, is transfigured into
its sequel and follows Brown’s Gary Stu avatar, Robert Langdon, into a
new religious adventure/round of Catholic finger-pointing. Someone is
killing the great cardinals of Europe: Taking place in the days after
the death of a pontiff (John Paul II isn’t specifically named),
when the College of Cardinals converges on Vatican City. The rite of
Conclave demands the holy men be sealed into a chamber inside the
Sistine Chapel, literally enclosing themselves for deliberations as to
who the next Pontifex Maximus will be. It is during this moment of
ancient ritual that a madman decides to employ the most modern
technology to destroy the Holy See. All clues point to the involvement
of the Illuminati, a centuries-old secret society of movers and shakers
who advocated science over religion, thus becoming an enemy of the
Catholic Church. It’s these clues that have the Vatican bringing
American symbologist Robert Langdon to the altar, not only to find a
quad of Cardinals kidnapped by the culprit, but to locate an antimatter
bomb meant to bring heaven a lot closer to Vatican City.
As in the original novel,
Langdon does a miraculous job of picking-up the most elaborately laid
breadcrumbs ever known to man. The series of lucky coincidences and
incredible leaps in logic laid at Langdon’s feet are almost laughable.
Yet, the incredibly high production values and earnestness with which
Angels and Demons tackles its patently preposterous twists are nearly
impossible not to go with, if, for no other reason, to find out how far
believability can be stretched. What that leaves us is a very good
looking, very dumb popcorn movie.
Howard got a stunning cast of
actors to give his film far more gravity than it deserves; starting with
Tom Hanks’ return as Robert Langdon, this time in a much more civilised
hairpiece than the unfortunate badger that expired on top of his head in
The Da Vinci Code. Hanks is much more charismatic than the written
Langdon and he seems stifled playing this character who isn’t exactly a
ball of personality. Even Hanks’ natural comedic timing couldn’t help
the abundance of allegedly witty lines that fell out of the air like a
thud. Stellan Skarsgård plays the head of the Swiss Guard, the
Vatican’s official military force. Wielding a skeptical sneer,
Skarsgård gets one of the few intentional laughs of the film expressing
his sarcastic joy that all will be well because “the symbologist is
here.” Armin Mueller-Stahl portrays a cardinal whose ambitions may or
may not be the stuff of bad paperback novels … Oh, wait. Lastly is
Renton Wan-Kenobi, himself, Ewan McGregor as the late Pope’s right-hand
man Camerlengo McKenna, a devoted young prelate who must’ve gone to the
same seminary as G.I. Joe.
Those last three actors all
rather obviously make up the movie’s rogues’ gallery and Howard lays out
the evidence for suspicion with a trowel. All the finesse in Angels and
Demons was saved for its visuals and what lovely ones they are. It’s
hard to go wrong with Roman scenery, and cinematographer Salvatore
Totino does a lovely job of capturing its dilapidated grandeur, scenes
of gathered cardinals inside the faux-Vatican look like paintings, even
the ghastly sight of an unfortunate victim being burnt alive is
breathtaking. Howard gets good use out of Brown’s details of Catholic
ritual, showing us the mysterious ceremonies no one outside of Vatican
walls will ever see. Say what you will, Catholicism is one fabulous
looking religion with unbeatable production values that must be
cinematic paradise for a director to film. Despite an awkwardly
inserted stem-cell protest, Howard gives an even keel to Brown’s
Catholic-bashing instincts by not straying any further than the research
derived from the story and actually makes an unexpected pitch on the
side of faith, despite his lead character’s espoused Atheism. Hans
Zimmer’s Exorcist-on-steroids score captures all the pomp due its
surroundings. So much going for it, yet it’s still so pulpishly bad –
which doesn’t mean it’s not occasionally a fun thing to watch – Ayelet
Zurer’s constant breathless agitation as the scientist responsible for
the antimatter bomb is hilarious. Some of the dialogue is 1950’s
B-movie bad, including an exchange way too late into the film when an
inspector, aghast that the killer might be right under their Roman
noses, asks, “Is it conceivable the Illuminati have infiltrated the
Swiss Guard?” Langdon quips “Why wouldn’t it be?” He refrains from
referring to the detective by his official title, Captain Obvious. In
one of the most dim-witted climaxes in movie history; the helicopter
scene and its aftermath had me in stitches. Clearly, that’s not what
Howard was going for; staking his action sequences out with all
sincerity, but even those are hit and miss, with any tension utterly
non-existent, but for one or two moments watching the killer dispatch
his prey.
In the end we’re back to a
mindless popcorn chomper; a dumb, gorgeous thing with a (mostly)
fabulous cast. Still, for all the money and cinematic credentials
pouring out of every scene, one would have expected more. For what it’s
worth, Angels and Demons is far more enjoyable than its zillion-dollar
sire, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually any good.
~ The Lady Miz Diva
May 14th, 2009
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