I have to admit. I am a big fan of Dan Browns books. Not for their literary genius or stunning dialogue but simply for their ability to make the reader keep turning the pages. For this reason I paid for my popcorn with a certain degree of trepidation.
Normally movie adaptations are a poor relation of the book and certainly when Ron Howard made the DaVinci Code, another Dan Brown Thriller, into a movie he did not make a a very good effort of it.
That movie, and indeed the book, came in for severe criticism for its portrayal of the Catholic Church and in particular Opus Dei.
The backlash was severe and it is clear that it coloured the view of the director as he embarked on this particular adaptation.
RUINS
Howard does everything he can to save Catholicism and in my mind in so doing ruins what could have been an excellent movie.
Angels and Demons was a far superior book to the Da Vinci code and only caused less of a stir because it did not infer that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene! It had a better story, a much faster pace to it and was much more action packed.
Unfortunately little of that was translated onto the screen and instead we got some excruciating moments of film where Tom Hanks, back in his role as Professor Robert Langdon, and Ewan McGregor, as an Irish Catholic Priest, debate the meaning of faith and the folly of science.
This movie goes out of its way to make a point.
What exactly that point is though is muddled. Certainly it tries to be pro Catholicism and anti Science but this was such a complete reversal from the book that the whole thing appears clunky and contrived.
There is also the infuriating habit where the writers feel the need to explain every little bit of detail.
I had to look around me at one stage to confirm I was in a cinema and not some stuffy lecture theatre listening to the monotone voice of some buttoned up professor of theology.
Religion can be fun and history too and Dan Brown, even though both were of the pseudo variety, at least introduced us to a world which could hold our attentions for more than five minutes. Howard, Hanks and Co however fail to do so, and as Professor Langdon searches for pieces of art work owned by the Vatican I actually willed for the oxygen to run out in his specially sealed vault.
The plot itself puts science firmly in the role of bad guy as a piece of anti matter is stolen from the CERN facility in Switzerland and hidden somewhere inside the Vatican, those silly scientists don't have any respect for the power that they harness you see!
MYSTERY
Anyway, a frantic search takes place with Langdon leading the charge across Rome to solve one mystery after the other and when the movie finally grinds to a halt two and something hours later we are left with the message that the Catholic Church is a brilliant organisation, except for a few bad and confused eggs where as science needs to check its advances.
I don't necessarily disagree with this view but surely art, in all its forms must be allowed to say what it wants to say.
This movie was too scared to portray the message of the book. You don't have to agree with the author but the raft of changes that were made simply to placate a religion which was never going to be placated seems an exercise in folly to my mind.
It would have been far better if Howard had the courage to make the movie in an honest way and leave it up to the audience as to whether it agreed with the message.
They may not have but at least they may have enjoyed the time spent watching the movie.
