A brilliant book adaptation!

Rating: 9/10 (7 December 2010)

The Da Vinci Code was a film that was far too over analytical making it slow and losing tense and pace unlike the book. Angels and Demons has an entirely different outset. It still explores the story efficiently but is more fast paced, tense and leaves room for more action and thrills. Ron Howard has expertly and correctly kept truly faithful to the book. Tom Hanks delivers another excellent performance as Robert Langdon and I was very impressed with Ewan McGregor as the Camerlengo and the script and dialogue is sharp and the twist at the end is unexpected unless you have read the book. This should appeal to intellects and fans of the books.
Obviously Dan Brown's books have stirred up lots of controversy particularly Angels and Demons among the Catholic community, which is fair enough. It can be very insulting in that sense, but as an atheist I wasn't bothered and lets face it at the end of the day the idea that any of this could happen of the Camerlengo poisoning his own Pope and using anti-matter to reunite religion is so absurd, it comes on to the extreme of preposterousness. So as a result I don't take it seriously and just see it as trashy entertainment, though it is a bit off putting that a lot of the facts Brown associates with the book as true actually aren't, but I was happy to look past it. Overall I loved this movie but I can certainly see why this is would divide opinion not just with religious Catholics, but fans of the book. But I thought it was brilliant anyway. Go and see it and make up your own mind.