Film Review: 'Angels & Demons' a good mystery overdone

Photo by Zade Rosenthal/Columbia Pictures, Zade Rosenthal/Columbia Pictures

Tom Hanks and Ayelet Zurer track down clues to murder and conspiracy in "Angels & Demons."

In my review of "The Da Vinci Code" two years ago, I wrote: "You know a movie's a dud when even its self-flagellating albino killer monk isn't any fun."

Photo by Zade Rosenthal/Columbia Pictures

Tom Hanks and Ayelet Zurer track down clues to murder and conspiracy in "Angels & Demons."

Angels & Demons

When Langdon discovers evidence of the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati--the most powerful underground organization in history--he also faces a ...

Rating: PG-13 for sequences of violence, disturbing images and thematic material

Length: 140 minutes

Released: May 15, 2009 Nationwide

Cast: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer, Stellan Skarsgård, Pierfrancesco Favino

Director: Ron Howard

Writer: Akiva Goldsman, Dan Brown

More info and showtimes »

Now that I've seen the follow-up, "Angels & Demons," in which the killer-for-hire is a standard-issue hit man, I sort of miss that old melanin-deficient murderer. How come there's never a self-flagellating albino killer monk around when you really want one?

Also gone is the Muck Sticky hairdo that Tom Hanks wore in the earlier film. This time, Robert Langdon, the crime-solving Harvard "symbologist" played by Hanks, is a more respectable-looking academic. In fact, the whole enterprise seems even more burdened than its predecessor with a desire to avoid risibility. But how un-silly can a movie be when it's about a conspiracy to blow up the Vatican with an antimatter time bomb?

Forget that albino monk -- where's Dario Argento when you need him? At times, composer Hans Zimmer seems to be quoting from the score of the Italian director's 1977 horror masterpiece, "Suspiria." Considering that "Angels & Demons" is a film with menacing clerics, skull-lined catacombs, branding irons, ancient cults (the Illuminati) and the gimmicky serial murder of four Roman Catholic cardinals through methods inspired by the Greek elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water, a filmmaker like Argento -- who dispatched priest Udo Kier with multiple cleaver chops to the dome in his most recent film, "Mother of Tears" -- might have been right at ghoulish home.

Of course, a genre specialist like Argento likely will never be entrusted with a multimillion-dollar blockbuster like "Angels & Demons," even though the best-selling source novel by Dan Brown is as pulpy and outrageous as something Sivad would have cracked wise about on "Fantastic Features." Instead, the director is the reliable Ron Howard, who brought "The Da Vinci Code" to the screen and seems to be the nicest guy in Hollywood, even if he still is a bit cross (pun intended) about the lack of cooperation his "Angels" crew received from the Vatican while on location in Rome. Was that really a surprise? Did the American Kennel Club cooperate with the shooting of "Cujo"?

In addition to being a murder mystery and a chase film, "The Da Vinci Code" presented itself as a provocative, pro-feminist investigation into the origins of male-dominated, institutional Christianity. This time, the controversy is science (we are told that the church is "at a crossroads, its ancient traditions threatened by a modern world"), as the agnostic (or perhaps atheistic) Langdon is recruited by the Vatican because of his scholar's knowledge of the Illuminati, a free-thinking secret society driven underground centuries ago (according to the film) because of its resistance to the Bible-based fundamentalism of the old Catholic Church.

"Science and religion are not enemies," one character opines, unfortunately resisting the impulse to put that sentiment into song, to the tune of "The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends" from "Oklahoma!" Fine, but in "Angels & Demons," it's an evil agent of the Catholic Church who plucks out a victim's eyeball, not a sinister thermodynamics engineer or nefarious marine biologist.

Apparently, the Illuminati are behind a terrorist plot to murder four top cardinals and disrupt the election of a new pope by blowing up St. Peter's Basilica with a cannister of "antimatter," created by a Swiss supercollider. Working with a Swiss Guard commander (Stellan Skarsgaard), a young papal aide (Ewan McGregor) and an attractive "bioentanglement physicist" (Ayelet Zurer, who -- like Audrey Tautou in "Da Vinci" -- engages in no bioentanglements with Hanks), Langdon leads a connect-the-dots search for the missing cardinals and the antimatter among the chapels, obelisks and tombs of historic Rome. As the principals race from one tourist highlight to another, Zimmer's frenetic score tries to convince us we're excited, too.

Scripted by David Koepp ("Jurassic Park") and frequent Howard collaborator Akiva Goldsman ("Cinderella Man," "The Da Vinci Code"), "Angels & Demons" was produced on a lavish budget, which is obvious not just from its technical gloss and its impressive sets (including re-creations of famous church and Vatican interiors) but also from its many camera set-ups; Howard prolongs the action by shooting even simple scenes (such as Langdon's swimming pool meeting with an agent of the pope) from multiple, unnecessary angles.

This is typical of Howard, an expert craftsman who long ago discarded the wit and economy that characterized his low-budget early films ("Grand Theft Auto," "Splash") for the type of grade-A bloat that impresses Oscar voters ("A Beautiful Mind"). It's also typical of big-budget Hollywood films with religious themes, even if the highfalutin ecclesiastical and philosophical debate here is essentially stained-glass window dressing that camouflages what otherwise might be a nice, entertaining murder mystery.

-- John Beifuss: 529-2394

© 2009 Go Memphis. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.