I’m not much of a reader, so although I’m sure I’d heard about Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code,” I never desired to read it. It was pretty much hammered down my throat around the fall of 2005 in anticipation of the movie’s release and I figured I’d see what all the hype was about. It wasn’t hard to find someone who already owned the book, who would loan it to me and after a couple of fits and starts, I hunkered down and plowed through it. To my amazement, I enjoyed it. I never much cared for history or certainly religious history and thought it would bore me, but there was something about the intrigue in the tale, blending fact and fiction that made it hard to differentiate which was which. I liked that.

Where's Waldo?

After finishing the book, I had found out that there was a previous book, called “Angels & Demons,” dealing with the same character of Robert Langdon. I plowed through that as well. Figuring it would eventually be made into a movie, I envisioned how things might look up on the silver screen and was pretty jazzed.

Of course The Da Vinci Code film was released and like most people, I wasn’t its biggest fan. I doubt those who hadn’t read the book could make much sense of what was going on, and of course those that had were missing a lot of what we had hoped to see. Even with that mishap, I’m excited for Angels & Demons. Tom Hanks has long been one of my favorite actors and his hair is back to looking unobjectionable in this. One of my favorite parts in the book was getting to each ambigramatic brand, setting off the following chain of events. The trailer displays the script for the “Illuminati” and I hope the film takes advantage of this cool visual feature.

"What's up there?" "It's sin, you don't want any part of it."

Angels & Demons involves Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) called in to help uncover the mysterious murder of a renowned physicist, Leonardo Vetra, who has been branded with the symbol of the “Illuminati,” a legendary secret society, thought to be defunct. With the help of Vetra’s adopted daughter, Vittoria (Ayelet Zurer), Langdon discovers that the Illuminati have stolen a canister of antimatter, the amount of which is akin to a small nuclear weapon. It is feared the canister is hidden somewhere in Vatican City where the election of a new pope is taking place, after the previous one’s death. The four Preferiti, thought to be the frontrunners for the position are all missing from the scene. With the help of Carlo Ventresca (Ewan McGregor), the pope’s closest aide, the fate of Vatican City and the symbol of Catholicism are in Langdon’s hands. I have faith, or at least a heap of hope that Ron Howard and the rest of the filmmakers will atone for their sins from the first film and deliver the type of film fans and viewers require.

Black is slimming.

Angels & Demons is scheduled for release May 15.