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15.05.09 # 20:41 # Review # 8 Comments
The Angels & Demons reviews have arrived. Is it a lot of nicom-pope?
Whereas The Da Vinci Code undermined the truth on which Catholic Church is based, this time Robert Langdon is working to save the Catholic Church from destruction, so why there would be any controversy about the film is beyond me.
But does it finally answer the BIG question - Why did God create dinosaurs, and then kill them all, and are they in heaven? Here’s what the movie critics are saying -
Variety -
“Angels & Demons gives top priority to the story’s beat-the-clock thriller elements. Less turgid and aggravating than its predecessor, this cleverly produced melodrama remains hamstrung by novelist’s Dan Brown’s laborious connect-the-dots plotting …Hanks is kept in motion so much, there’s hardly time for characterization as such.”
Empire -
“Angels & Demons is at least more entertaining than the dreary, talky Da Vinci Code… but it’s still tosh. …material as insane as this cries out for a crackpot visionary like Dario Argento or Richard Stanley.”
“If you’ve read the book, you’ll merely be confused. If you haven’t, you’ll think Tom Hanks is speaking Latin. …characters are constantly telling each other things they should already know, translating foreign words into English in the middle of conversations, and then explaining everything again.”
Angels & Demons currently holds a 41% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 133 reviews, compared to 24% for The Da Vinci Code.
Leave your own Angels & Demons reviews in the comments.
Posted by 
This was such a downer. I’ve been reading the book as much as possible and as soon as the movie started I was turned off and disappointed.
they took out the best fight scene from the book. it was weak
Great intro to this post Sheridan
Thanks Thom. You weren’t tempted to take the fam’ to this one?
Angels & Demons doesn’t really drum up much interest in our household after the ‘meh’ that was Da Vinci Code! I read another of Dan Brown’s books called “Digital Fortress”, that was enough nonsense about codes for one year.
I may give it a look when it comes onto TV screens in about 3 years time!
I loved this film. Great music, fantastic acting, and very entertaining!
I went to see Angels and Demons intending to laugh at it. After what the critics have been saying, I had all my jokes ready. I wanted to hate it.
I recieved a strange surprise. Angels and Demons is NOTHING like what the commercials portray. It is not offensive. It is not controvercial. It has no real insults against Catholicism at all.
A little about Galileo shows up near the start (of course.) A little about stem cell research. But that is all. These comments are quickly forgotten.
What emerges it a beautiful testament to the Catholic spirit. When Langdon fights to save a drowning Cardinal, it is truly touching. The speech of the Cardinals is dignified and rational. When Ewan McGregor speaks to the Cardinals about science, he is speaking basically the Church view anyway. Balance. Rational views before a rational God. This is the medieval view. It has certainly been lost on popular culture today.
And the film, I was shocked to see, was suspenseful and well-plotted.
The ending was a celebration of everthing Catholic. The pope. The belief in God. The dilapidated grandure of the Vatican. It was uplifting and spiritual in a powerfully Catholic way. It actually brought a tear to my eye, and I am not just saying that. Unusual and profound.
How to explain this, I do not know. This ending is not in the book. The beautiful, gentle sentiment is not in the book. The Angels and Demons film is not what Dan Brown apparently intended. It is something else. Something Catholic. Perhaps this is why the critics hated it. It is not what they expected at all. It certainly took me by surprise.
And Langdon (Hanks) actually seems to show a hint of faith in God at the end. You see it in his face. A completely unexpected move. Yet totally appropriate, given what has come before. A fascinating reversal indeed.
I get the impression that Ron Howard did not intend to make the film this way. It happened in spite of him. There is genuine grace in this movie. A true atmosphere, that only appears in things illuminated by God. And I am shocked beyond words to find that this is a profoundly moving, affecting movie in virtually every way.
I am not giving it high marks because I understand the intention behind the film was to offend. To be controversial and to insult. The book certainly does. The commercials do. But the film does not.
I would not buy it. But I would rent it. Give my money to the video stores and not to Dan Brown. He does not deserve it. But I will remember this movie. A reputedly anti-Catholic film that turned out to be anything but. It was one of the most humbling days of my life, seeing this. And I am glad that I did.
Totally idiotic. An insult to my intelligence. I would have walked out had I not been with my girlfriend. Tom Hanks plays a know-it-all professor who can’t hide his disdain for the ignorance of Catholics but who stupidly wastes time researching Bernini in the Vatican Library when any decent guidebook would have told him what churches contain Bernini sculptures. Besides, he should already have known that information, just as he should have already known where to find Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon. And by the way, any man can be elected Pope, and he doesn’t need to be at the consistory, or even be a priest. And the Papal Chamberlain is always a cardinal. I could go on. Suffice to say that this movie was probably written by some arrogant know-it-alls just as dumb as Hanks’s character.