Not a great movie, but entertaining and better than many critics claim.

Rating: Null/10 (13 December 2009)

We all know the controversy surrounding this series of movies involving the Vatican and Roman Catholicism. I am Roman Catholic but I see no reason for those who are upset. This is not billed as anything more than a fictional story based on the supposed "Illuminatti" from the time of Galileo. Supposedly they were formed to combat, from within, the Church's stance against science which may go against old, established religious beliefs.
As this story begins the Pope has died and the Cardinals are gathering to discern and name a new Pope. But someone with the Illuminatti have kidnapped the 4 main candidates for Pope and are promising to kill them one at a time.
Tom Hanks is back as Papal historian Robert Langdon and he is asked to be flown to Rome to help figure out what is going on and how the Cardinals can be saved.
Ewan McGregor is Camerlengo Patrick McKenna, a priest who was a confidant to the deceased Pope and, we find out, had been adopted by the Cardinal as a small orphan. Stellan Skarsgård is head of the Swiss Guard, Commander Richter. Armin Mueller-Stahl is Cardinal Strauss.
The beginning and the end of the movie work very well. Some of it involves capturing a small quantity of "antimatter" as the CERN Large Hadron Collider starts up. Much of the middle where they always seem to make the correct guesses, and always turn up 1 or 2 minutes before something will happen, come across as a bit tedious. Good places to get up and grab a fresh beer without pausing the DVD. But overall entertaining.