Angels & Demons Review

  First off, let me start off by saying that I am one of the few people that actually enjoyed and thought The Da Vinci Code was a great movie. I know the ending was a bit anti-climatic, but it was a great mystery movie/thriller and any film with the stunning French actress Audrey Tautou is worth watching (all this despite Tom Hanks’ silly hair flopping around for two hours and that thankfully has been altered for the sequel).
That said let me inform you that while Angels & Demons is a good film, it doesn’t live up to its predecessor. Don’t get me wrong I liked it, but there was just something missing. Without giving too much of the plot away I will say this: the story basically boils down to a bomb threat and your typical race against time to stop it. That’s it. Sure there are the supposed religious secrets revealed and it even has a slight twist toward the end (which you see coming half way through the film anyway), but I still walked away feeling a little robbed. There just should have been something more in the movie for me to care about it.
What made The Da Vinci Code awesome was the huge threat posed against Christianity and the great conspiracy that was potentially going to be revealed about the “true” relationship between Jesus & Mary Magdalene - it’s hard to top a story like that so it understandable that the sequel struggles to surpass it. Maybe if the writers had thrown in some aliens or ninjas then it might have been better. Anyway, to me releasing the “truth” from the first film would have completely crushed a belief system that has been held for thousands of years and caused more ruin to people’s lives than a simple bomb threat in the Vatican placed by a secret society, in this case The Illuminati, as depicted in Angels & Demons.
Another reason why I’m not crazy about Angels & Demons is because of the supporting characters. They are weak and killed off too quickly for us to appreciate. They just seemed to be placed in to push the movie forward and if they were taken out it would probably not make a difference to the story. Even the villain(s) come across as last minute add-ins to film’s story line. I mean they are the source that drives the whole movie and when you have an legendary group like The Illuminati not being presented properly than something is wrong. (Let me put it this way: The Illuminati have been around for centuries and have more than enough reasons to hate and want to destroy the Catholic Church but in this movie they are only represented by 2 guys. Wow, 2 dudes they must be dangerous!) If The Illuminati truly wanted to get back at the church then they should have revealed the big secret from the previous film. I’m sure they know about it, right? This would have caused billions of people to turn their backs on Christianity and been way more effective than trying to blow up the Vatican with a stupid energy bomb. Kill them with knowledge damnit!
Don’t get me wrong the movie is good, but just that - good. Sure it has mysteries to be solved, clues to follow, and great action scenes - but why are the villains and their motives so weak? Where’s the story? Where’s it’s heart? I couldn’t find it.

Overall Rating: Wait for the DVD