Angels & Demons

Review by Jason Gaston

It seems like only yesterday that The Da Vinci Code was lulling us into peaceful slumber, heads falling limply into popcorn bags, complete strangers using your shoulder as  a pillow, projectionists falling right out of the booth and snoring the entire way.  Is it time for a sequel to this movie?  That's wonderful, I could totally use a nap.

Tom Hanks is back to solve a mystery at the Vatican.  The pope has died under mysterious circumstances, those who are most likely to replace him have been kidnapped by an ancient organization called The Illuminati, and if that wasn’t bad enough for for the God Squad, there’s a significant portion of Anti-Matter about to explode and obliterate the entire city!

That’s right… antimatter. Dan Brown has gone right to the Star Trek universe for a plot devise.

Not that I care, my suspension of disbelief works rather well considering the loads of manure  it usually has to digest from movies like this. My suspension of entertainment, however, is another matter all together as Angels and Demons, though a little tighter and faster-paced than its counterpart, is still a boring and tedious affair in which Robert Langdon and his babe-of-the-sequel-sidekick (an Italian particle physicist played by Ayelet Zurer) follow a series of more and more contrived clues to find the bad guy and save the city.  It’s an episode of Scooby Doo without the fun.

Angels & Demons builds up to a climax that is unbelievably contrived, a twist that is eye-rolling, and a wrap up that wraps up too quickly.

With that many problems with the plot, much of the movie is riding on Tom Hank’s shoulders and, playing such a confounding and two-dimensional character doesn’t help matters. Tom Hank’s Robert Langdon is perhaps his most unlikable character and, yes, that’s counting  Joe vs. The Volcano.

This is a terrible movie. Terribly boring and terribly written. It’s better than The Da Vinci Code, but every bit as empty-headed. Besides, being better than The Da Vinci Code is like preferring measles to the mumps.