Nice shots of Rome are not enough

Rating: Null/10 (18 September 2011)

This adaptation of the Dan Brown novel of the same name tries hard to be faithful to the pseudo-erudite tone of the book but just doesn't quite make it. Ron Howard is not a subtle director; his straightforward style could have worked to simplify the book's complexities, but it doesn't. I think one of the major reasons is that it is a bad book, but the prequel Da Vinci code was so popular that the screenwriter and Howard were perhaps a bit too respectful. Howard, to give him credit, tries with a kind of chiaroscuro lighting scheme but even that doesn't seem to work. Many scenes are simply too dark, and chiaroscuro is light and dark combined. Rome is wonderfully lit at night, but nothing equals the daytime sky that inspired so many artists. Howard opted for night time scenes (like in the book) but this just muddies the images, since most are dark close ups rather than dramatically lit piazzas, churches and monuments. Light and dark only work in panoramic shots that can include both. Switching from light to dark doesn't work when the action is set at night. Second, the book insists in making John Langdon into something of a James Bond, Sean Connery style. This may be believable for some, but anyone who knows Harvard professors and "symbologists" also knows that not too many are going to be running the 100 yard dash in under 10 seconds, swinging wildly from balustrades, and hold their breath under water for 30 seconds. Most of these guys are so used to talking that the underwater silence alone would kill them, not to mention the gymnastics and their bodies toned by thousands of hours in those armchairs. In brief, it is just not credible, as neither are the clues and riddles and Langdon's solutions to them: too easy. These are supposed to be the Illuminati, the greatest assembly of geniuses the world has ever seen, able to battle the greatest spy network in the world, the Vatican. Yet it alls seems a bit lowbrow. It's like the first book: playing word games in Latin may dazzle people who haven't studied the language, but they're not too difficult to figure out if you have. Hanks tries, as always. He is very good at being earnest as he gets older. Unfortunately, the female lead was not the love interest this time around, and no one really holds our interest except Ewan McGregor as the Camerlengo, the Chamberlain who is the eminence grise in the interregnum following a pope's death. He communicates the real power and responsibility he wields behind the scenes. Hanks' Langdon comes across as a clever but preachy high school teacher, and Vittoria Vetra is not a so convincing scientist that we believe she has found the mysterious "God particle" at the heart of the plot. All in all, not a bad movie, and worth watching just for the shots of Rome (though these are not so good as a decent travelogue on the Discovery Channel), but not so interesting, and the lighting, meant to be provocative, is only irritating.