Review: Angels & Demons

Angels & Demons (2009)
starring: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer, Stellan Skarsgård, Armin Mueller-Stahl
dir. Ron Howard

Sorry, but I want to keep this simple so I don't feel as if I'm wasting much time on this.

The Dan Brown book this is based on was stupid, but had enough set pieces to make a film version a little more appetizing. Unlike The Da Vinci Code, this plot had deadlines before people die, thereby increasing tension. Still stupid, but tension filled stupidity.

The film though, has no tension, because director Ron Howard has no idea how to build it. The thriller genre is not his game. it didn't work in his film Ransom (1996) and it works even less here. At least with Ransom, we were given characters. In Angels & Demons we are given an expositional device in the shape of Tom Hanks. he doesn't look happy to be there and we aren't happy to see him looking so unhappy. No one looks happy to be there as a matter of fact. Unhappy people on screen. Unhappy people in audience. Unhappy experience all around.

The CGI is close to intolerable as we get a computers version of the Vatican and other parts of the city. Weak, weak, weak and never feels like more than a money grab by all involved.

I'll give Ewan McGregor a thumbs up for attempting to bring something to his role, but it is crushed under an avalanche of mediocrity and dull execution on every other front.

As a summer film it fails completely, but it's still better than The Da Vinci Code (2006).

6.5 out of 10