An appalling travesty

Rating: 2/10 (19 May 2010)

Firstly - if you don't want a film compared to the book, don't advertise it in reference to the book and perhaps call it a different name. If you elect to stake the films reputation on the book that inspired it, you had better approach the process accordingly. So, given this movie was made and launched on the book, I feel wholly justified in comparing the two and consequently wanting to slash the movie to ribbons.
I tried to watch this film objectively given that the novel is a roller-coaster thrill ride - whether you approve of the subject matter or not, a great read is a great read, and when you accept the challenge of translating a book to film, a good idea is to have read and embraced the book before you start. Having done so, a director, producer or writer would understand the very essence that above all must be brought to the screen. Sadly this film fails in almost every respect. Why would we need to waste valuable minutes at the start of the film watching Langdon (Tom Hanks) in a swimming pool - IMDb trivia section tells us that Hanks had to undergo strenuous training for that scene....why? it is of absolutely no importance to the film whatsoever and so it continues from such an early point. The whole thrill of the book is a race against time - so instead of a wedge shaped super aircraft to get Langdon from swimming pool to Vatican City in 90 minutes, we get a "Papal Jet" to take a leisurely waltz across "The Pond" to Rome where, still fresh as a daisy, Langdon "rockets" into and through muffled dialogue. It has been asserted that the "budget" was weighted on scenery at the cost of characters, well, in my opinion at a far higher cost than that. How can so many key characters be arbitrarily slashed, amalgamated or diluted from the plot and replaced with nothing but convenience. The entire pacing of the film is off, where there should be more there is less or nothing, and where there should be less or nothing there is meaningless padding and pointless time wasting. There are no valid relationships, no chemistry its all just bland and moribund. I wanted so much for this film, if ever there was a book crying out, no, screaming for "Blockbuster movie", this was it. This is not a piece of work that Ron Howard et al can possibly be proud of. It is nothing more than a shame.