Minute44 - Dan Schonhaar

Directed by: Ron Howard
Starring: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor

I’ve read all four of Dan Brown’s popular short-chapter cheap-thrills novels (Digital Fortress, The Da Vinci Code, Deception Point and Angels and Demons) and I have to say I’ve enjoyed them all. Long before Ron Howard began work on The Da Vinci Code, however, I’d come to the conclusion that if either of the Robert Langdon novels were to make their way to the big screen it would be Angels and Demons that would make the better film. The intense focused race against time wasn’t as broken by long historical explanations and the subject matter meant there was more scope for impressive special effects and action sequences. But I have been wrong before…

What I got with Angels and Demons was 20% nostalgia (it had been a while since I read the book.) and 80% disappointment. I normally hate the “The book was way better than the movie!” crowd but in this case I totally agree.

That’s not to say the movie didn’t have it’s good moments. Langdon’s sense of humour got a bit more face-time this time around and it was pretty effective at lightening the mood. On top of that, the few special effects scenes that did survive the adaptation (I’ll talk in more detail later) were pretty well executed. These positives, though only go as far as to make this movie watchable. It still falls quite short of enjoyable.

I was actually really surprised to see how much Ron Howard had strayed from the source material considering how loyal he was to The Da Vinci Code. There were whole scenes, not waffle – important scenes, cut from the movie entirely and some fairly fundamental changes to the way the ending played out. – Bad, Richie Cunningham! Bad! – But these changes were only half the problem. Where the movie really fell down was in its delivery. The pace was too slow, the big revelations that characterise Dan Brown’s novels were underwhelming and it just wasn’t that interesting.

It’s amazing that, given how much media coverage CERN and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have had over the last few months, the several chapters of the book that revolved around the facility were paired down to a non-sensical 5 minute intro that told absolutely nothing of the nature of the facility and gave the story on the whole a massive plot deficit. In the book, Langon actually goes to CERN and learns about what they do. He sees the body of the murdered scientist in person and gains a much more personal relationship with female lead Vitoria Vettra. In the movie, Langdon goes nowhere near CERN and doesn’t even learn Vettra’s name until about a third into the movie. FAIL!

Plot hole number 2, and this is a big one, is the fact that they made A&D a sequel to ‘Da Vinci despite the fact it was the first of the Langdon novels. Normally this wouldn’t bother me but let’s think about this one. Robert Langdon uncovered the catholic church’s biggest secret, he caused the Vatican an unconscionable pain in the arse but not only do they tolerate him being in Vatican City, they actually ask for his help!? Why!? Why on earth would you change the time line when it offered no benefits but caused a huge plot hole? *facepalm*

So on the whole then, A&D failed to deliver. Early reports on the grape vine seemed to suggest to me that it was better than ‘Da Vinci but I can confirm, from my perspective anyway, that this isn’t the case. The Da Vinci Code offered a truer, more accomplished and more interesting film in spite of it’s flaws.

Verdict: