I am so excited that a bloated overrated The Da Vinci Code gets to be followed up by a bloated overrated Angels & Demons. There were no significant improvements; this just felt like another version of the same movie. This franchise is shaping up to be a film version of 24, this guy is evil, cliffhanger, no this guy is evil, cliffhanger, no wait this guy is evil, cliffhanger, whew we saved the day, wait one more twist, credits.
Its nice to see after the farfetched storyline of the hidden keepers of descendants of Jesus Christ in The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons follows that up with antimatter, Freemasons, and Cardinal assassinations. I’m glad that this franchise is staying grounded. Once the final twist is revealed, the entire storyline is pretty damn convoluted. This entire plan could have fallen apart every step of the way. So much of it hinged on Langdon figuring things out at this magic point in time where he wouldn’t be able to stop it from happening but sill witnessing the death of the cardinals. And by the end I had to turn off logic to accept rockstar pope and all the 180s the plot did in the final 15 minutes. Years of 24 made this a lot more acceptable than it should have been; Jack Bauer has been living this movie for the last 7 years.
Ignoring his hair, Tom Hanks is great in this role. He is not playing an action hero, just a smart guy who keeps assembling pieces of the puzzle. Plus he throws all these moments of humor that Hanks is always great at. I wish he would work as often as he used to. Ewan McGregor, Stellan Skarsgard, and Armin Mueller-Stahl do the best they can with what they have been given. There is a new European actress to run around with Langdon and she does just about as well as the last one. Good cast but no one stands out like Ian McKellan did in The Da Vinci Code.
Angels & Demons was a perfectly acceptable action thriller. It looks good, moves fast, and has Tom Hanks. For that alone it gets a good grade, but it could be so much more.
7 out of 10
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