Academy Award winning Director Ron Howard teams up with Tom Hanks once again to bring audiences the second adaptation of another vastly successful bestseller by Author Dan Brown. Angels and Demons sees Tom Hanks reprise his role of Professor of Symbology Robert Langdon in a sequence of events which take place after the incidents of The Da Vinci Code. After the death of the Pope, Professor Langdon is called upon by the Vatican to solve certain clues left behind by a well connected criminal who has abducted four Cardinals with the intent to kill them publicly.
Langdon soon finds that the plot to ruin the church runs deeper than it seems at first when he uncovers the existence of an age old secret society called the Illuminati seeking revenge from the Catholic Church for crimes against them centuries ago. Along with the murders of the four Cardinals, the Illuminati also threaten to destroy the entire Vatican City in a final act of cleansing.
Director Ron Howard is one of the most talented Directors out there with the likes of Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind and Frost/Nixon under his belt. Along with him is one of the most accomplished actors of our time, Tom Hanks who along with his two Academy Award wins for Best Actor has been nominated a further three times. However, The Da Vinci Code proved to be one of the biggest disappointments that year while many of those who loved the book did not appreciate the tedious nature of the film.
Angels and Demons tries it’s best to make the successful conversion from novel to film paying particular attention to aspects of the previous film which made it so unbearable. Unfortunately though this film had much of the same flaws as the first film, due to the simple fact that too much information had to be shared with the audience in too little time. Though the film is much more frantic than the first, Angels and Demons was still terribly boring and its characters seemed to be rushed through the script to make sure all the information needed to understand the plot is shared. Disappointingly the simplistic nature of the plot and its overcooked melodrama is never more so obvious than in the film adaptation of it.
With such an established career Tom Hanks has picked a few questionable roles as of late and none worse than Robert Langdon, possibly the world’s most uninteresting protagonist who inexplicably finds the urge to constantly divulge damning conspiracies that only he seems to know about. I’m not quite sure how anyone could do a good acting job with such an uncharismatic bore and frankly Hanks didn’t seem to know either. Surrounding Langdon is a group of bumbling underdeveloped bunch of characters who do nothing more than speed things along and insult all those who appreciate an intricate storyline. Add in two whole villains into the thick of things and you know you’d be tearing your hair out.
Angels and Demons is mildly entertaining if you’re into listening to paranoid religious conspiracies while driving 40 miles an hour in your hatchback. Being a sceptic of Dan Brown’s childish scribbling I found that contrary to my expectations the film had worse dialog than the novel and an even more formulaic directorial job. The film was long, boring and a testament to the fact that some stories are better off forgotten.
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