"Vatican City will be consumed by light..." - 'Angels & Demons' Review...

Posted on May 20, 2009 - 10:42am by michael Neither Ron Howard nor Dan Brown nor probably anyone involved with The Da Vinci Code really made many friends with the authorities of the Catholic Church with that movie, so it comes as some surprise to me that Howard would have been offended, even if just a little bit, when he was denied access to the Vatican for filming the sequel, which was published before The Da Vinci Code but takes place after. It does seem, however, that they are being a little more careful this time, or at least more respectful. The Catholic Church has denied all "real-life" (or whatever you want to call the reality of organized religion) relevance of the movie, passing it off as a "harmless entertainment" that really poses no threat to the Church. So that's nice, right? I'm glad to see Hollywood and religion in general not at each other's throats, you know? It's a little refreshing, and it makes this movie even more interesting because it's all about the ancient war between science and religion in the first place and the Church's epic, historical cover-up(s) of the truth. Of course, the truth a pretty elastic term when it comes to religion (which this movie mentions is not God but what man says about God), and I'm glad to see that the new movie, Angels & Demons, seems more interested in entertainment, as it should be, than in making any earth-shattering revelations about the meaning of life. There is an interesting and tense scene in the first act of the movie where Robert Langdon, who we met in The Da Vinci Code, is asked whether or not he believes in God. "I don't think my mind can grasp the reality of the existence of God," he says. "What about your heart?" he is asked. "My heart is not worthy." These are very carefully guarded questions, the kind of thing that a non-believer would say to someone that he doesn't want to offend, but he shows genuine respect when asked about his faith. "Faith is a gift that I have yet to receive." The movie starts out, believe it or not, exactly the same way as Innerspace. Remember that movie? Classic! After a sequence describing the recent death of a progressive and well-like Pope, we are taken to a "Large Hadron Collider" (by the way, I just typed "Hadron" but accidentally reversed the d' and the r.' Oops!) which collides some, ah, hadrons, I suppose, and creates and captures some "anti-matter," which is capable of causing devastating explosions. This becomes important later. The bad guys rush in, steal a vial of anti-matter, and threaten to rain biblical, as it were, destruction on all of Rome, vaporizing the Vatican if it's demands are not met. Who are these people? The Illuminati, another ancient mythical cult like Opus Dei from the first film. What are their demands? I'm not sure, the movie doesn't take much time to go into such things before the desperate race against the time bomb to Armageddon starts ticking. But we do learn that historically the Illuminati have always been composed of doctors and philosophers and scientists and so have always been dedicated to scientific truth, and since the Church wasn't so into that idea they became enemies pretty early on. Langdon and his side-kick, this time a Vittoria Vetra, one of the scientists from the Hadron Collider, are now faced with the task of deciphering ancient clues to find the location where those Illuminati thugs have hidden the ticking vial of anti-matter. Essetially the movie is a desperately paced race for them to unlock the secrets of a long and ancient trail of clues within the Vatican in order to reach the bomb before it explodes and vaporizes a large chunk of Rome. I'm not sure why the Illuminati would take the time to place it carefully at the end of this trail of clues, but it provides for a great excuse for a breathless chase that takes up most of the second half of the movie, and I would certainly by lying if I said it wasn't entertaining and exciting. I think the problem with both The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons is that they both deal with subject matter that is so massive in the modern global society that there is no possible way that any movie could really fulfill the expectations of the audience, particularly the audience that knows something about the real history of it all. Yeah, you can pick these things apart into little pieces if your really want to, but as good popcorn entertainment I think they are both great movies, if a little on the long side. Neither of them are spoken from the throne of God himself, but if you want to go to a movie and have a good time, you could certainly do a lot worse than both of them. And especially at a time when we have sad messes like Next Day Air and Obsessed dominating movie theaters across the country, this one comes highly recommended. If you've seen Star Trek and X4, of course... [caption id="attachment_35251" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="4 Beans out of 5."][/caption]