I thought it was a reasonably good adaptation of the book, until the last 20 minutes or so......

Rating: 5/10 (7 December 2013)

*WARNING THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE BOOK AND THE FILM*
I read the Angels & Demons book fairly recently and found it a gripping read. Naturally, I went into watching the film Angels & Demons with reasonable expectations - I didn't expect the film to be as good as the book if I'm being honest, but I at least expected it to stick close to the original source material and that was my biggest gripe with this film;
The majority of the film was tense and exciting and stuck fairly close to the original Dan Brown book. There were some things that were included in the book that were omitted from the film, but these minor details didn't bother me too much as they weren't relevant to the overall plot. One thing I didn't like about the film version of A & D was how some of the characters were depicted; In the book, there was a constant playful 'sexual tension' between Langdon and Vittoria that was completely absent in this film. Also the character of Olivetti came across as arrogant and argumentative in the book which made his character interesting and actually gave him a 'character'. In the film, Olivetti shows none of these traits and just seems to be compliant all the time - his character was just flat in the film and I think it's a stretch to say that he even had a character. I felt sympathy for his character when he died in the book, but couldn't care less when he died in the film. It also seems that the filmmaker's couldn't care less when Olivetti died as well as this is just shown briefly as the camera pans past him and nothing more is said on the matter. I found that this particular scene was poorly handled considering he was a central character for most of the film. Also Langdon & Vittoria had no chemistry in the film, but as I mentioned above there was definitely some 'sexual tension' between them in the book which meant that you're constantly running the 'Will they or won't they scenario through your head'? That being said, the flat characters weren't the biggest problem, but it was the last 20 minutes that really turned this into a shambles.
The turning point for me was the scene where the Camerlengo is exposed as the person responsible for masterminding the killings of the 4 cardinals. In the book, this was a tense scene involving Langdon and the Camerlengo both going up in the helicopter in which the Camerlengo confesses to Langdon that he was behind the kidnapping of the cardinals before parachuting out of the helicopter leaving Langdon and the anti matter on the helicopter. This left me as a reader in suspense wondering what Langdon would do next. So what happens in the film? The Camerlengo goes up in the helicopter on his own and the helicopter explodes leaving the audience to believe that he kills himself, but he parachutes out of the plane before it explodes. What rubbish. This for me was one of the worst scenes in the film. Why didn't they have Langdon & the Camerlengo in the helicopter together as they did in the book? This was a tense scene in the book and would have been a tense scene in the film.
A couple of final points; the kidnapping of Vittoria was ignored as well (again another tense part in the book). For me, the worst aspect of this film was the ending. In the book, the Camerlengo and Langdon fight it out when Langdon works out where the Camerlengo had taken Vittoria to, but in the film they just had the Camerlengo set fire to himself when all of the Vatican discover the truth. What a cop out! To say that I was a bit disappointed with this adaption would be an understatement. I felt really angry when the film ended due to the fact that they created a tense and engaging film for the most part which stayed fairly close to the book and then ruined it by creating a poorly handled plot twist and then changed the ending of the film. I could have forgiven the filmmakers for changing the ending if they'd made it better than the book, but they didn't and that's what has made me so angry. The only reason I gave this 5/10 is because for the most part it was good. If only they'd have handled the final 20 minutes better.