A pleasant surprise!

Rating: 9/10 (15 May 2009)

When I went to see this movie I expected to be disappointed. I have red the book umpteen times and love it and since movies very rarely live up to books they are based on - well, I didn't dare to hope this one was any different. To my great surprise I wasn't disappointed at all, in fact I was even impressed. OK, sure changes have been made, as always, but in Angels and demons I found almost every change justified. Some things in the book wouldn't translate very well on screen or it would've taken to much time to make them justice. The character alterations that have been made also work out better than I thought possible. All in all, I only have three complaints about this movie: 1) Sometimes Langdons "lectures" are a bit overdone, especially in the first part when he starts explaining things no one has actually asked him about. It's just a little too obvious that he's giving background information to the audience rather than to the people he's talking to on screen. Which leads us to problem no. 2): some of these explanations disrupt the pace of the movie. I mean they have only a few hours to solve the greatest riddle ever, find 4 missing cardinals and locate a hidden bomb, and yet they are walking calmly on their way to the archives, when they should be running their a**es of. Why? To give Langdon time to explain some more things we need to know in order to understand what's about to happen. The information is necessary, no argument there, but the way it's delivered could have been done in a better way. Problem no. 3 is the female lead, Vittoria, who spends most of the time just asking Langdon the right questions. And since they've left out the part of the murdered CERN-scientist being her father, there's not much to build on emotionally - she's simply not angry or active enough. Ironically, one of her best lines from the book is in the film, but has been given to another character. Apart from these flaws I'd say the film is just great. Hanks IS Langdon and Ewan McGregor's acting is superb as always. Changes from the original were well put together with fine storyline and no loose ends. Great scenery, nice effects - simply well done (some day I'll have to sit down and figure out why it's so much easier to write about the negative parts than the positive ones). I'll definitely go and see it again.