"Angels & Demons" Surpasses "The DaVinci Code"

Rating: 9/10 (7 June 2009)

"Apollo 13" director Ron Howard's "Angels & Demons" qualified as a 100 times better than its predeccesor "The DaVinci Code" and the surprises kept piling until the very end. Hanks' co-starlet Ayelet Zurer isn't very pretty and she has a rough-hewn appearance. There are no romantic interludes between them, but everybody else in the cast was terrific, including Ewan McGregor as the priest and Stellan Skarsgard as the Vatican police chief. The villain is a lethal S.O.B. who is a crack shot with a silenced automatic pistol and displays no qualms about killing Italian cops even after he has disarmed them. He gets his just comeuppance in the end. The helicopter scene at the end is unrealistic like much of the movie but it is utterly entertaining with some interesting Vatican lore thrown in for good measure. Director Ron Howard generates lots of hair-raising suspense, especially in the Vatican archives and later on toward the end with the shoot-outs. None of the stupid things that marred the first movie occur in "Angels & Demons." In other words, the villain doesn't try to shoot the hero from a few feet away and miss him. Tom Hanks gives another polished performance.