Review – Angels and Demons

(Disclaimer: If you haven’t seen this movie, there may be information in this review that might be considered a “spoiler” - although I consciously try not to put major spoiler info in my reviews. Proceed with caution.)

I read the DaVinci Code back when it was all the rage and enjoyed it thoroughly. I then proceeded to read its prequel, Angels and Demons. Looking back about 4+ years, I don’t remember much about the book, but I do remember that at the time I enjoyed it more than the DaVinci Code. Of course, then they made a movie out of DaVinci. I reread it before going to see the movie partly so I could tell what changes they’d made to the story. The movie was good, but I didn’t care for the changes they made to the story, for whatever reason.

Although I thought about rereading the book before going to see Angels and Demons, I did not. That may have had more to do with my being too busy to get to the library, though, than having been a conscious decision. I do know of one major change – that this movie is a sequel to the other movie, whereas the book was a prequel – but I don’t think that’ll be that big of a hairy deal to me. There is one minor problem with not having reread the book, though, and that is that I didn’t know if Ewan McGregor’s character was a good guy or not and since he's the cutie of the movie, I really like to know these things going in.

Basically, the plot is this: the Pope has died and the Vatican is going through the steps to name a new Pope. Actually, I read this book before the last Pope died, and found it very interesting to watch on the news what the steps were to get a new one. So the book was very educational in that aspect. Anywho, a secret society of scientists have kidnapped the top four contenders for the popeship and has threatened to kill one an hour until midnight at which time a bombs gonna blow up the entire city. Next thing, to the rescue comes Robert Langdon, symbologist! (dunh, dun, duh!!) I know, even he was amazed!

What follows is a whirlwind, 24-like scouring of Vatican City to find certain places and get there before the bad guys kill and leave the body of one of the four pope contenders. Only instead of Jack Bauer, you have Tom Hanks. (I know, I know, no one competes with Jack Bauer, but Jack would've had to torture a few of those priests to get the info, and I suppose that would've cheesed off the Church, eh?)

The newspaper thought the plot had a lot of convenient co-inky-dinks in it, but you know, I really don't try to analyze movies like that. I just thought it was a good movie. Even though the plot came back to my mid-movie, it was still gripping. So my view of this movie was that it was very entertaining. Well worth the money! Just don't drink a big ol' thing of iced tea before the movie because about 3/4's of the way through the movie, you'll really need to go, but not be able to!! :)

Next week: Terminator - Salvation. Whoo! I get chills just thinking about it! or am I just thinking about Christian Bale?