" When you write about us and you will write about us, be kind as we are human "

Rating: 8/10 (25 November 2009)

If you have read the dubious source which has become the basis for the movie " The Da Vinci Code " and this second addition which emerges as " Angels and Demons ", you'll quickly realize the intricate nature of Ron Howard, the director. Having read the book, then watched the movie, I see the enormous segments of the literary track, were left out. Howard is a great director, as proof is seen in his past work. In this film however, there is a great deal lacking. Though it's not as complex as his 'Code' which drags the audience across countries, this one has the befuddled audience racing around Vatican city itself. Tom Hanks returns as Professor Robert Langdon a cryptologist who did not ingratiate himself with the Rome see in the first film, is reluctantly recalled by the same church to help solve the latest threat which calls itself the Illuminati. This secret group has kidnapped four important cardinals and promises to murder them for past sins of the church against the Intellectals brutalized in the past. Nikolaj Lie Kaas plays the assassin who stays well ahead of Hanks and physicist Vittoria Vetre (Ayelet Zurer) and Commander Richter (Stellan Skarsgård). With the complexity of a Physics problem, the movie is entertaining enough if you like crowds, racing sequences and threats of final annihilation. There is gratuitous drama, character suspense, combined with double and triple double-crossing, so much so one forgets who is fighting whom. As a result, this is an exciting movie for those who seek to leave the theater with heads spinning. But having read Dan Brown's juvenile books, they are baffling enough and it's not necessary to see his cryptic suggestions on the silver screen. ***