Angels & Demons

This is not so much of a review…. We saw this last night and had a lengthy discussion about various topics on the drive back home…

Achtung! SPOILERS…In short, the movie was moderately entertaining…. only because I already read the book. (gasp! I know, right?)…. I cannot imagine how non-readers would have percieved this film. My only guess is it might’ve been outright boring. I went to watch this movie, only because I imagined in grand detail the murders of the Preferiti.. (I may have been spoilt after watching, in utter disgust, a couple of movies of the SAW series)… Also I imagined Vittoria Vetra to be a smart, dashing young woman, with the aura of an academic person (Helen Hunt would’ve done better). I imagained that Inspector Olivetti would be this daunting personality… and certainly the Hassasin…I pictured him to be this tall muscular guy, wearing a constant villainous sneer on his face.

I used to hate these book-geeks, who read every sentence and more there is to read and come watch HP movies and go… “This is not how it is in the book“… and I used to give this irritated look for having spoilt the moment that I could have spent looking at the screen and trying to understand the happenings… Unfortunately for me, I turned into one of those people myself – this time around.

Note to self: Do not read popular novels…. If you do, please do not watch the movie, knowing it will be disappointing…. Or just watch the movie instead… The flipside to this is, however, it is not until much later in the popularity life cycle of the novel, that novel-based-movies get released… By that time you are climbing walls with curiosity about what the hullabaloo is about… Mainly because sometimes people around talk about it all the time, and you just want to try to fit in. (The last sentence does not apply in my case, so no perceivable social threat there…my friends know me well enough to not discuss… much less, mention books in my presence)

The Illuminati brands weren’t shown properly… and for some reason the final brand – The Illuminati Diamond – was not even there… Instead the movie had a completely different brand – of two inverted keys – apparently something to do with the way some Pope died/was buried/whatever.  

Tom Hanks, for a change, looks a bit different than he did in the previous movie….Good different that is… Despite my peeve that somebody else could’ve been a better fit for Robert Langdon, I like Hanks in this movie. 

Some of my favourite sequences that I remembered reading and expected to see on screen were cut out and completely changed. For instance, the very last part where the hassasin dies, falling from the balcony of the building where he holds Vittoria captive… is GONE… he is wiped out in a car explosion.  There is no mention that the drab-looking Padre in the science lab is Vittoria’s father…. The very presence of Vittoria in the lab during the antimatter generation is a deviation from the book. And it just struck me! The handicapped fellow, at CERN… I guess the Director of the CERN facility? NOT THERE in the movie. 

No flashy, hovercraft thingie carrying Langdon to CERN from his Boston (?) place. And I am not sure if the 4th Cardinal is also murdered by drowning in the fountain… wherein ensues the fight between the hassasin and Langdon. This whole sequence – GONE.

Vittoria’s character completely wasted. Ewen, however, is stunning as the Camerlengo.

At this point, I am not even sure if this movie would be liked by everyone or not. Also, somehow it seemed that the movie team has tried to make this film less controversial, delibrately, compared to the previous venture. That said, I wasn’t terribly bored or frustrated at any point…. meaning, it is probably not a must-see, but you may want to check it out if you have read the book, just to see how it is played out on screen.