Angels and Demons April 25th, 2010
Originally Written 05/16/09
I saw Angels and Demons. I got tired of the hype and never got around to reading any of Dan Brown’s books or seeing The DaVinci Code so this was somewhat new for me, but I knew what to expect and got pretty much that. It was a middling but passable thriller and for the most part entertaining.
The annoying points were the obvious expositions where they hit you over the head with everything. I’m no apologist for the Catholic Church, but to have characters stop just to point out some past aggression was kind of lame, as was the heavy-handed topics of science versus religion. Yawn!
Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of it and only a handful of times where it really bugged me. I will say some of the historical references were kind of cool as well. The movie did have a few nice dialog exchanges on faith and doubt, as well as a couple of wonderfully nuanced and emotionally effective scenes. It’s too bad it couldn’t have had more of those, but that sounds like its par for the course with the source material.
The movie started out being pretty goofy, but got better and the third act was the best part of the film. The adventure and mystery was fun too. It wasn’t great cinema, but certainly watchable and had some fun.