Angels & Demons
I’ve always considered Tom Hanks to be a sort of modern Jimmy Stewart: slap him in any role and you’ve got an instantly likeable, enjoyable character. His charisma and personality has a way of infusing any character, from Forrest Gump to a gangster in Road to Perdition, with natural charm and good humour. When Hanks was tapped to play Robert Langdon in Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code, I thought it would be more of the same.
Unfortunately, Hanks didn’t come close to pulling off an interesting character and his trademark likeability was right out the window. In Howard’s Angels & Demons, in which Hanks reprises Dan Brown’s hero, it’s more of the same for poor Tom. The character is bland and wholly flat, offering nothing by way of personality or individuality to speak of. Hanks’ acting chops are entirely wasted, unfortunately.
Angels & Demons is based on Brown’s novel, which takes place before The Da Vinci Code. Brown stirred up an awful lot of trouble from confused religious people unable to tell fiction from reality and from conspiracy nuts with similar problems. Angels & Demons takes similar ground, attempting to develop a sort of dingy Catholic theology adventure story with Langdon as a low-rent Indiana Jones.
Hanks’ Langdon is tapped to head to the Vatican shortly after the death of a Pope. This surprises him, naturally, as the events of the previous film should have left him in less than ideal standing with the Church. The Church needs his skill-set as a symbologist (?) though, so it’s off to the land of smoke and mirrors he goes. When he arrives, Langdon finds himself in the middle of a plot that includes kidnapping and a group called the Illuminati.
The Illuminati is a group royally pissed at the Church for past persecution, so they’ve hatched a plan to interfere with the new Pope selection process and kill off the four top candidates for the appointment. They’re also going to destroy the Vatican c/o an antimatter vial that they stole from a nuclear research lab. Langdon’s eventual sidekick, Dr. Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), helps the effort to locate the antimatter.
Obviously Langdon is very helpful because everything the Illuminati does can be traced thanks to his knowledge of symbols and their predictable behaviour. Their plans to assassinate Church leaders coordinates with the four altars of the Path of Illumination, of course, and Langdon is able to crack this by rifling through some books in the Vatican Archives and by generally knowing a lot about symbols. Along the way, more corruption is revealed and nothing is as it seems.
If Angels & Demons sounds formulaic and ludicrous, it is. While ridiculous plots are frequently forgiven if they offer something of value, Howard’s movie doesn’t accomplish much. It’s a whole lot of rushing around the Vatican, complete with CGI renderings of important places, and a whole lot more intrigue and “shocking” revelations about Catholic Church history. There’s also a whole science vs. religion conflict occurring, but Howard plays that angle fairly safe throughout.
Hanks’ Langdon remains an entirely unlikable character throughout the film and his co-stars are of no help, including Ewan McGregor as Camerlengo Patrick McKenna and Stellan Skarsgård as Commander Maximilian Richter. Zurer looks good in the role, but she offers little other than a running partner for Langdon as he works his way through various archives, museums and sacred locations. A scene that could have provided some humour between the two is quickly discarded in favour of, you guessed it, more chasing around.
All in all, Angels & Demons is an uninteresting and predictable bore of a picture. It isn’t the worst movie of the year by any stretch of the imagination and Howard directs it well enough, but there just isn’t anything new or exciting here. As an action picture, it’s repetitive and as a film about religious mystery, it’s bland as all hell.
Trailer:
