Science versus Religion (Angels and Demons (DVD))

Member Name: soutram

Product:	Angels and Demons (DVD)
Date:	21/09/09 (130 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good action filled film

Disadvantages: Does not follow the book 100% and feels a bit rushed

I am a big fan of the Dan Brown books and I particularly enjoyed The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons so when I found out they where making films about the books I was very curious to see if they could make them as good as the books.

I bought Angels and Demons at the weekend as it was on offer in Tesco for £8 if you spent £30, so on Saturday night I sat down to watch it.

What is it about?
Angels and Demons is all about science and religion, a large European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) manages to produce three containers of antimatter which shortly after being made one gets stolen, meanwhile in Rome they are morning the loss of the pope and are preparing to go into conclave and start the process of picking a new pope when they received a threat from a 400 year old underground secret society the Illuminati.

The Illuminati have kidnapped four of the most popular cardinals and say they will kill one every hour until midnight and then the Vatican will be destroyed in a burst of light (the antimatter will be used as a bomb). This is when they decided to ask Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks) and renowned symbologist to come and help them figure out who has taken the cardinals and try to save there lives.

The film takes you on a journey of the path of illuminations which is all about four alters of science which are each somehow related to the four elements (Earth, Fire, Air, Water), Robert Langdon uses the Vatican's secret archives to figure out where the path of illumination starts, this then leads you on a path of twists and turns, murder and deceit.

Main Characters
Tom Hanks plays Robert Langdon
Ewan McGregor plays Patrick Mckenna
Ayelet Zurer plays the role of Vittoria Vetra (A CERN scientist)
Stellan Skarsgard plays Commander Maximillian Richter (Head of Swiss Guard)
Pierfrancesco Favino plays Ernesto Olivetti (Inspecter in the Gendarme Corps of Vatican City State.)
A. Mueller-Stahl plays Cardinal Strauss (Cardinal who is in charge of conclave)

Is it any good?
Well as I said I am a big fan of the book and I think if I hadn't read the book then I probably would have enjoyed the film a lot more. The film misses out some rather large bits of the book but then I suppose they cant get a whole book into two hours, the start of the film is completely different to the book, in the book Robert Langdon is called in by the Director of CERN to help them figure out who killed there scientist so he spends quite a bit of time at he science facility where as in the film he is called in by the Vatican and goes straight to Rome.

Even though they missed out these bits the film is still very enjoyable, it's a lot faster passed than the book (which I suppose it has to be to keep people interested), once Robert gets to Rome the film pretty much follows the book although because it is so fast passed he does tend to solve the clues a bit to quick, I think they could have gone into a little bit more detail on the history of the Path of Illumination etc as I feel this would have made the film make more sense to people who have not read the book.

Overall I would say the film was very enjoyable, it had lots of action and murder etc, but I feel that some of the storey got a bit lost and maybe was not told quite as well as it could have been. I expected it to be as good as the Da Vinci code which I thought went into quite a lot of detail and explained the story well, Angels and Demons just seemed a bit rushed.

Summary: A very good film to watch but I think the book is far better