A few thoughts about Angels & Demons ...

I received a free pass for 2 to Regal Entertainment , refreshments included. So we decided to see Ron Howard's Angels & Demons. Now before I get into the movie let me say a couple of things about "Regal Entertainment Theaters"; in my opinion, they are neither "Regal" nor "Entertaining" and the less said about them the better.

Ok - I have read and enjoyed each of Dan Browns' books "Angels & Demons" and "The Da Vinci Code". Both books have their strong points and their weak ones. I always liked Angels & Demons better than Code because to me Angels was more of a political thriller with a minor in religious art history, while Code was more of an experiment in "what if" that seemed to strike a nerve in certain segments of the population. ( methinks they doth protest too much ? ...)

Now, I never really liked the movie version of The Da Vinci Code, it actually took me three tries and a couple of years to get through it. It seemed to me to a big screen version of the TV show Numb3rs. You know the part where the brother Charlie tries to explain how the bad-guys will react by extrapolating patterns in a lawn sprinkler while CGI calculations fly around his head?? Same thing about the Da Vinci Code. The novels are very interior-thinking. The lead character Robert Langdon either solves problems by inner dialogue or basically stops the plot entirely for brief, but enlightening history lessons. For me this did not translate to film well at all. I also felt that they really soft-pedaled the more controversial aspects of the book. Look - if your going to make a movie from a book that has everyone up in arms about whether or not Jesus had a wife , then you need to all out balls-to-the-walls and and make that movie. The book didn't sell a bazillion copies by being wishy-washy .... agreed?

As for Angels & Demons ? What is basically a very tightly written ( going back to my TV references once again ) episode of 24 or "12" as this case may be, turns almost entirely on one big gigantic MacGuffin. Once you realize that , you realize that you have spent the last 2 3/4 hours watching a movie about one idea or philosophy ( good as it may be) that could have easily been printed on the back of your movie ticket. A movie where if one person zagged instead of zigged the whole plot would have come crashing down like a house of cards. It's not that i didn't enjoy the movie, the directing was great, cinematography was fantastic, the cast was exceptional, it was just that the story ......meh .

I guess some things are better off read than seen

Until next time -