Could Have Been Better! Yet, Decent As It Is!

Rating: 8/10 (15 June 2009)

Each and every person I speak to about this movie turns out to be someone who has had the time to read the novel by Dan Brown of the same name on which this movie is based. And each person gives a report about the movie and at the end of it says only one thing - "The novel is far better." And before I say anything about the movie, there is this comment that I would like to make about the people who, not only about this movie but also about other movies based on popular novels, have to say - "The novel is much better." Once in our Science class we were cheerfully told not to add buffaloes to sheep. (To illustrate a concept called dimensional analysis.) The relevance here is that it is very unfair to any movie to keep uplifting the novel and lower the level of appreciation for a movie.
How do you compare the two media? One medium has the luxury of spreading all that there is to know across 600 pages and maybe even more of pages that are printed in small font-size. This same medium has the luxury of spending as much time as possible to develop the characters and give them dimensions that the readers can identify with. If the author decides to introduce something bordering on being crap, he has all the pages in the world pouring out necessary text to make it sound convincing to the common reader. What can a movie do? Each second of a movie has some thousand dollars of expenditure behind it. The length has to be limited. What will a movie maker do? He cannot deliver your novel on the screen word-to-word. I do not believe in the comparison. It is lame and meaningless to me and hence I do not like to hear the phrase - "The novel is better." Yes, it is lame for me to hear text and reader imagination being compared to the difficulty of direction, scripting, visual effects, sound, etc. working to in sync to tell a story.
Now, coming to the movie Angels and Demons, it obviously changes the story so that it may fit into the time limits of a movie. I ask the question - "Is there anything believable about the plot of the movie?" No. There is hardly anything that is quite believable. But does that make it a bad movie? The answer is again a no. Surprisingly, in spite of sheer lack of believability this movie entertains and excites. And especially for the person who has not had the chance to see the Vatican, gives a wonderful tour of the city. The photography is damn amazing. It gives a wonderful portrayal of a city filled with beautiful structures that are symbols of the vast history of that land.
Tom Hanks' character has not great dimensions to it. There really was no challenge for an actor of his caliber in the movie. After all the hard work and concentration he had to do in all his other movies, here is a role that really did not demand the actor to use his skills to the fullest. He probably did it because he enjoyed playing the role in The Da Vinci Code. The other members of the cast do their jobs well. There are some short comings in the script time to time where things get a little too absurd but the movie pulls on somehow.
The sheer speed of the story is too much. And it is this speed that takes out a lot of believability from the movie. But then, there are so many other movies that break this law by showing a race against time. So, why condemn this one? Just because it is based on a popular book that seems to have too many hardcore fans? Don't get me wrong! All I am trying to say is the the movie does a good job in giving you an overall idea of the plot. Sure, it may not develop its characters for that would compromise on the excitement and urgency of the situation. But what about the photography? The Sound? The effects? They are all well done.
On a personal level, I myself would love to see a lot of changes to the movie perhaps to make the plot more real. But then the movie would contend to satisfy critics and loses its viewers. Overall, a good watch!