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Movie review: “Angels and Demons”
BY MAGGIE SCOTT
Embryonic stem cells; abused altar boys; women agitating for ordination; broken celibacy vows; right to life versus right to choose. Are these too hot to handle in a movie? Then, how about science versus religion?
You could even make a thriller out of that topic, if you’re writer Dan Brown and the work is ‘Angels and Demons,’ adapted for the screen by writers David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman, and directed by Ron Howard. As if the Catholic Church didn’t have enough on its plate, it’s still having to deal with an issue that dates back several centuries to the time of Galileo, when he and others were laying the foundations for modern science and facing stiff resistance from the Vatican. Resentment of that resistance has led at the present day to an old enemy seeking revenge for its violent forcing underground generations ago.
Someone, who may be a modern day member of a secret sect known as The Illuminati, has notified the Vatican he has in his possession four cardinals. Not just any cardinals. They are the preferieri, or the top candidates from which one will be chosen to be the new Holy Father. They have been taken as prizes for an unholy scavenger hunt along the “path of illumination,” at the end of which is the hiding place of a confiscated canister in which is suspended “the God particle” in religious terms, or “anti-matter” in scientific terms.
Who ya’ gonna call? Illuminati buster, Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), the Harvard professor of symbology who cracked the Da Vinci code. Taking his “expertise and erudition” to Rome, Langdon is briefed on the situation, which is not only dire for the missing cardinals, but for most of the city if the battery holding the antimatter suspended in its container, goes dead.
Hoping the bunny just keeps going and going, Langdon hits the ground running and running, following the clues that will reveal the location of the cardinals and the antimatter. Obstructions, distractions and assistants to the enormous task include: the commander of the Swiss Guard (Stellan Skarsgard); the safety of sequestered cardinals charged with selecting the next Pope; the Grand Elector (Armin Mueller-Stahl) responsible for keeping the cardinals on task; a beautiful physicist Vittoria (Ayelet Zurer), whose father was the kidnapper’s first victim; and a priest called the Camerlengo (Ewan McGregor).
Only seconds late in discovering the locations of three of the cardinals, before they suffer gruesome fates, Langdon nevertheless presses on, truly believing his powers of analysis and academic acumen must and can prevent Armageddon.
Meanwhile, in the face of certain annihilation if they remain so close to ground zero, the Elector refuses to halt the conclave, believing they are “in God’s hand,” and their sanctified work must go on. Although the film could have used much more 24 and a lot less The Great Race to tell its story, it does manage to deliver on a wing and a prayer some intriguingly divulged history, some forced wit, some belabored thrills and some awesome aerial shots of the Eternal City.
A Columbia Pictures release, rated PG-13 for violence.
