Angels & Demons starring Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer, and Stellan Skarsgard, is the first BIG SURPRISE this summer.  The movie is a prequel to Dan Brown’s best seller “Da Vinci Code”

and a much better story.  Before I even begin to review the film I want to issue an apology. In my May 2009 Preview post I said definitely skip the film.  I spoke way too soon and based my opinion on the fact that “The Da Vinci Code” was just a bad movie.  Well all I have to say is Ron Howard learned from his mistakes; I was wrong.   Angels & Demons is definitely worth seeing. I would go as far to say it’s a pretty good movie.

For those who have not read the book, the story is about an attack on the Vatican by an old scientific fraternity known as “The Illuminati .”  According to the film, they had been at odds over how to define concepts of the Enlightenment.  The Church had religious explanations while the Illuminati offered a scientific theory to explain such concepts. Well the Church didn’t like it, started hunting the fraternity, and the Illuminati returned centuries later (modern day) to seek revenge.  This gives absolutely nothing away. Just an FYI

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Anyways, the film did not have me bored for one second. While I ended up turning off “The Da Vinci Code, ” I was at the edge of my seat the entire time in this movie.  One thing I did notice was that Howard kept things more simple; less extraneous clue finding and impossible to follow puzzle solving.  In “Da Vinci Code” there were way too many scenes where he had no clue what was going on and that made things confusing and ultimately boring; we lost interest.  This time, the audience was really able to keep in tune to Langdon as he continued to unfold the plot.  Things made more sense. Howard’s adaption of this Dan Brown novel is much more audience friendly and thus kept us interested.

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Perhaps the film being set entirely in Rome made this book-to-film adaption an easier task than Da Vinci Code.  “Da Vinci Code” had us running around the world while we are set in just one city this time.  This brought the movie down on a smaller scale which allowed the plot, which is the driving aspect of the movie, to really take over. Langdon is also bit more believable in this film as well.  Nobody really likes him, except for Zurer’s character (basically his partner), and we see him slowly convince a skeptical Papacy of what is really happening.  The action was great, the music was thrilling, and the bad guys were much better.  Ian McKellan was a terrible bad guy in the Da Vinci Code and Paul Bettany just played a creepy Church hitman that was just uncomfortable to watch on screen.  Howard really went the other way this time. Not to mention, he kept “Angels & Demons” at a little over 2 hours instead of the lengthy 2 hours 40 minute mess that was the “Da Vinci Code.” I also noted that Tom Hanks’ hair was not nearly as goofy this time. He had a normal haircut; bless which ever department made that decision.

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I disagree with most of the critics who bashed this movie, and there were many. This movie is fun, exhilarating, smart, and thrilling. Pretty much exactly what you want from a Summer movie. It even beat Star Trek this weekend by taking in $48 million; it was close though as Star Trek pulled in $43 million in the US box office.  I did not see this coming at all as my prediction was a blow out with Star Trek being top dog. I was wrong about that and the film.

I say GO SEE this movie. It’s worth it.

Let us know what you think.

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