A Solid Thriller

Rating: 6/10 (19 June 2009)

While "Angels & Demons" is by no means a great film, it at least manages to be consistently solid, which places it head and tails above its sorry predecessor.
From its mildly creepy opening to its mildly exciting finish, "Angels" is a fairly effective thriller. The plot bears quite a few similarities to that of "Da Vinci," especially concerning the supporting characters, but it does introduce a strong device not present in the first film. Each stop on Robert Langdon's journey through Rome works as an excellent set-piece. Director Howard seems with these scenes to have a good feel for eerie suspense and gruesome reveals. Furthermore, once these set-pieces are all over, the plot takes on a whole new heart-pounding direction that lasts until the fitting, if slightly underwhelming, climax.
Thusly, the plot proceeds from first frame to last, following for the most part the footsteps of Professor Langdon, played pretentiously yet again by Tom Hanks. It seems that to be a Harvard professor one must be bitterly sarcastic with everyone and deliver dragging monologues about history that long overstay their welcome. In fact, according to "Angels & Demons," the same can be said of Camerlengos. Ewan McGregor plays the film's Camerlengo all too convincingly, pouring out endless dull speeches about the nature of faith and of mankind. The fault in this case lies wholly in the hands of the screenplay. Strangely enough, however, this same screenplay gives very few words to Vittoria Vetra, the apparent female lead, who is played inoffensively by Ms. Zuret. Stellan Skarsgard and Armin Mueller-Stahl fortunately fare better in their roles.
Despite its shortcomings in some areas, the cast delivers on the whole, leading one to wonder why the film isn't better than it is. The real culprit here, in a twist worthy of a Dan Brown novel, is the screenplay. The movie drags on for an seat-squirming 138 minutes, matching each inspired thrill with a heavy-handed monologue or a piece of unnecessary historical jargon. Beautiful shots cannot beat bad pacing in this case. In fact, forty minutes of this film could be scraped away to great effect. Sadly, the said forty minutes were not cut, and this film is what it is. It's not bad, but it's no masterpiece.