Spectacular but somehow empty

Rating: 5/10 (25 November 2009)

I'm not the biggest fan of the film adaptation of Da Vinci Code, yet I'm surprised to see Angels & Demons actually receives somewhat higher marks. I felt that the film was trying to achieve too much. Granted, many of the images are grandiose, spectacular, bombastic, and Tom Hanks sure looks good in black. Yet it was all somehow so lifeless, just like the Swiss Guard. I did enjoy Armin Mueller-Stahl's steel blue twinkle, but it was almost identical to his twinkle in Eastern Promises. In the end, it all felt too pompous and contrived. The master symbolist solving riddles that finger-point right across Rome, hints that no other than him can discern. In between some scenes of excessive brutality, twitching bodies burning to death. And in the end, an unlikely master plotter - of course.