Good enough I guess

Rating: 7/10 (22 May 2006)

I have to agree with others on the casting aspects. Hanks not a good choice for Langdon. Tautou took some getting used to but in the end I liked her, it was if she grew throughout the film. Reno was excellent as Fache, Jurgen Prochnow as Andre Vernet? Oh dear. Molina makes a good Aringrosa. Silas was about right. But to cap it all, Sir Ian as Leight Teabing, perfect. Made for it and acts Monsieur Hanks off the screen. I knew it was going to be difficult to see a film of a book I knew inside out. What makes it worse is that even if I say so myself, I am somewhat of a well read person on the mysteries which the book itself is based on, so I suspect I was hoping for a lot from the film. The adaptation from the book was clumsily done, bits from the book which should never have been lost were and some stupid bits were added. For instance a scene on the top deck of a bus where instead of using a database at a library, Langdon uses WAP on some poor kids phone was laughable, especially as he was chatted up by Sophie. Then the absolute travesty that was the change of story lines. Neveux has messiah-like powers. Also Langdon has developed a gift for making words and figures dance in front of him like apparitions. All rather badly done. The final insult was what appeared to have been a hasty change of story. When Langdon and Neveux get to Rosslyn, the young lad who should be her brother suddenly has no part in the story. The the mysterious Priory members tun up, looking like they had been dragged off the street. The screenplay writer should be ashamed, and it would appear that they had no love for the story or else they would have done a much better job. I'm surprised if Dan Brown likes what has been done to it. Should a film of Angels and Demons ever be made, please keep Tom Hanks and Ron Howard should be kept well away. Onle last thing, the dialogue, oh please, "Godspeed" from Robert Langdon at the end. I cringed. Who on earth was responsible for that. The 7 out of 10 I gave this film were for my passion on this subject and for the performances of Sir Ian and Reno. The plot changes and terrible dialogue are almost unforgivable.