Beautiful sets, senseless script.

Rating: 6/10 (16 May 2009)

I continue to marvel at the art of motion pictures. The scenes inside the Vatican are enormously impressive and beautiful. I can't imagine the Catholic Church granting permission to film this anti-religious movie within such Holy sites, so the movie sets to recreate the interior scenes are amazingly authentic. Having visited the Vatican, I am impressed. The crowd scenes in St. Peter's square are also convincing though I can't believe hiring all those extras. If these are stock footage scenes, they blend seamlessly into the film.
So that leaves the enormously far-fetched plot. (I had not read the book.) So many holes and implausibilities leave the viewer perplexed and completely unsatisfied. Great detective stories, a la Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie, at least conclude with revelations that explain a convoluted plot. Not Angels and Demons. Leaving the theater, you wonder why. But only for a few minutes, as it is not worth the effort.
E.g., why go to the effort to steal a container of anti-matter from CERN, evading tight high tech security and murdering a scientist, all for the purpose of planting a bomb in the Vatican. Wouldn't just a load of common explosives, much more easily attainable, have achieved the same goal??? Oh, OK, it is a matter of volume. Sorry, that just doesn't fly.
A well made movie. A silly and unsatisfying convoluted plot and script.