It’s not exactly inaccurate to say that the Vatican hates Dan
Brown’s guts. Brown is the author of such unrealistic and fluffy pop
jewels as The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, and
since both pretend to accurately portray the life, history, and secrets
of the Vatican, the Vatican therefore kind of hates Dan Brown’s guts.
They also kind of hate the guts of Ron Howard for directing the screen
version of The Da Vinci Code, and by association, actor Tom
Hanks for starring as the film’s bookworm protagonist, Robert
Langdon.
However, in an odd turn of events, the Vatican’s newspaper,
L’Osservatore Romano, deigned to actually review the screen
version of Angels & Demons last week, and as it turns out?
They didn’t hate its guts very much. In fact, they kind of, sort of,
moderately enjoyed it (somewhat). And even more shockingly? For once, I
find myself kind of agreeing with the Vatican.
In this outing, symbologist Langdon is called in by the Vatican when
a modern sect of the Illuminati kidnaps four cardinals, and threatens
to explode and level the city with an anti-matter bomb. (Yeah, it’s
that ridiculous. So what?) Using all the bookwormy skills at his
disposal (along with some comely help from scientist/hottie Ayelet
Zurer), Langdon must race back and forth across the city to rescue the
cardinals, the Vatican, and a mostly useless (and for all practical
purposes, dead) religion.
While Howard treads a bit too lightly for my taste on the
hypocritical eggshells of Catholicism, I’m with the Vatican’s film
critic, who calls the director’s work “dynamic and alluring” and the
film a “gigantic and smart commercial operation.” Howard has always
been a bit of a genius when it comes to keeping long-winded exposition
moving and entertaining—even when it’s spoken by “stereotyped
characters” and “riddled with inaccuracies.” (Right you are, Vatican!)
Hanks and co-star Ewan McGregor are mostly wasted in their
uninteresting roles, but that’s hardly the point. As the Roger Ebert of
the Vatican puts it, Angels & Demons is “a videogame that
first of all sparks curiosity and is also, maybe, a bit of fun.”
So whether you’re a hard-line Catholic (or a lapsed unbeliever),
Angels & Demons is neither heaven nor hell. It’s just, as
the Vatican rightly puts it, “two hours of harmless entertainment,
which hardly affects the genius and mystery of Christianity.” (As for
that last point, I might argue that the film can’t affect anything that
wasn’t there in the first place, but… let’s just agree to
disagree.)
