Critics Corner – “Angels & Demons”

Film Outlet	Movie Critic	Rating Given	Review Date
	Prodigal Son	3 / 4 nests	5-22
	Peter Travers	2.5 / 4 stars	5-14
	Lisa Schwarzbaum	B-	5-13
	Roger Ebert	3 / 4 stars	5-14
	Critics / Users	C+ / B	5-22
	Patrick Parker	2.5 stars	5-14
	Rating / T-Meter	5.1 / 37%	5-22

I had a screenwriting teacher in college who spoke about the art of adapting a script from another source. He said that ultimately the writer owed nothing to the original material except for retaining its spirit. Aside from that, characters, plot points, objects and certainly dialogue could be freely changed as long as the soul of the source material remained. Of course, freely making changes or this nature to a beloved and best-selling novel is more difficult to do as the studio and the public know what film they want and it’s a visual version of what was written in novel format. Cuts and trims will always have to be made to ensure a decent runtime, but that’s understood even by the film-going public. Angels & Demons is one of those films where changes could be only minimal and what little they were didn’t hinder the result.

Angels & Demons is the follow-up to mega-grossing, but critically disappointing The Da Vinci Code. Although the book by Dan Brown was written and released before “The Da Vinci Code,” it’s treated as a sequel in the cinematic world. The film follows Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist, fresh off upsetting the Catholic contingent with revelations about Jesus Christ. Langdon is called upon by Vatican City officials when a CERN scientist is killed and a canister of antimatter is stolen and hidden somewhere in the city limits. An amigrammatic logo for the Illuminati, a secret society long thought to be extinct, is left at the scene of the crime and Langdon is the Vatican’s only hope for discerning the meaning of the crime and to help find the antimatter.

As if the threat of instant annihilation via the megaton bomb antimatter has the potential to become wasn’t enough, the city and the Catholic world has lost its pope. The cardinals are to meet in the Vatican and deliberate over who their next choice chosen pope is to be. The four preferiti, considered to be the odds-on favorites to gain the position are kidnapped and hidden somewhere in Vatican City. The kidnapping is determined to be the work of the Illuminati and instructions are received stating each preferiti will be killed an hour apart, at 8, 9, 10, and 11 p.m., with the battery for the antimatter canister – the only thing stopping it from going off – set to fail at midnight.

Langdon is looked at to be the only person who can detect the hiding places of each preferiti and stop the antimatter from triggering. He uses all of his acquired knowledge and the human resources around him to aid him in the process. He enlists the help of Vittoria Vetra, the lab partner of the murdered scientist at CERN, who possesses the ability to change the antimatter canister’s battery if they can get there in time and also Camerlengo McKenna who was the pope’s right-hand man and is the interim pontiff until a new one is elected. Together, they must act quickly to decipher the Illuminati clues and codes in order to save the preferiti and the fate of Vatican City.

In case you forgot Langdon was a professor, here he is in front of a bunch of books.

Although as the viewer you fall prey to Langdon’s knowledge of ancient symbols in order to crack the codes set forth by the Illuminati, he lets you in on exactly what he’s thinking as it comes to mind. It becomes a game of “riddle-me-this” that although you don’t have any real knowledge of how to solve it, you feel your brain churning as you attempt to figure out the path while Langdon lays it in front of you. It’s a cool trick that allows you to become an active viewer, almost participating in the revealing of the mysterious hiding places, although you had no prior knowledge of the layout of Rome or the ancient Path to Illumination Langdon must follow.

When this project was announced right after the release of The Da Vinci Code, the studio made it a point to lock up the same writer, director and star, which they did. What I find interesting is writer Akiva Goldsman shares credit with David Koepp (Panic Room) in this installation. That would mean Koepp was brought in, most likely to right a wrong. The Da Vinci Code caught a lot of flak for having too much exposition. Perhaps that could be blamed on Goldsman for being too faithful to the source material. Koepp was most likely brought on to condense the material and it was done successfully. Gone is the romantic subplot between Langdon and Vetra, which would have felt forced anyway. What the streamlining of the writing allows for is a brisker pace for which to tell this fast-paced story and it works to the film’s advantage.

Along with the script, the direction from Ron Howard is to be commended for making a less-talky, thrill-ride of a film this time around. I’ve always found it difficult to pinpoint a particular visual style for Howard, as he refuses to force himself upon his material and lets it play itself out. He employs CGI to show the creation of the antimatter much like you’d imagine David Fincher would. He’s also able to create moments of such great tension a page being torn out of a book will make you gasp aloud. In a way, he can be viewed as a perfect choice to helm this franchise as so much of the story power is encased in the content itself.

The film is far less blasphemous to the Catholic Church than its predecessor, as there aren’t many criticisms made, but rather a depiction of the process it goes through when electing a new pope. Dan Brown has a way of making history and learning fun, which may sound more like an attempt to get a child to read than an endorsement of the film, but it’s true. When adapting a novel, there are always going to be certain elements that are lost from the transition and I believe what was left on the cutting room floor only went toward helping the film. If you’re wondering why I have yet to mention the film’s star, Tom Hanks, to this point, it’s because he’s really not in it that much. Or least it didn’t seem like it. The story is the star of this film and if fast-paced adventure is what you’re looking for, you’ll find it in Angels and Demons.

Welcome to Movie Poster Round-Up Friday (like all Friday’s are around here) with another edition of the latest movie posters to hit the net this past week. There are 19 of them to be exact. The first two are for Downloading Nancy. I don’t think either is particularly great, but I think I like the first one better. If you haven’t done so, please check out the trailers for the film. The movie looks CRAZY. I think the poster for The Hangover is pretty feeble. Luckily I thought the movie was good. Click on the title to read the review. Harry Potter continues to invade with four more posters all featuring two characters you’ve seen numerous times. There’s a foreign language Love ‘N Dancing poster which is…cheese. Remember sticking your head through those silly cardboard cutouts? Here’s your chance to see Alexis Bledel do it on the poster for Post Grad. There’s something that amuses me about the poster for The Stepfather. Probably because I never had to endure one of my own (Thanks for staying married, Pop). There’s a couple of long-form posters for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Angels & Demons. The most anticipated poster of the week probably belongs to Bruno. I think it’s a little underwhelming, but I have to realize that not many posters are allowed to go very far. I assume all the work went into to actually making the movie. There are many others included in this beast, so enjoy!

Welcome to a wonderful new week in film. We have a bunch of first looks for you today. I feel it’s a good way to get it going.

[The Movie Blog] has the first shot of Russell Crowe in Robin Hood garb from the set of the new Ridley Scott film. Although I don’t particularly like the guy as a person, he’s a great actor. He looks pretty hard in this pic. It should be sweet.

For those hyped about the new Star Trek film, you might be interested in checking out the virtual press conference what was held earlier today. Director J. J. Abrams and others were on hand to answer questions. It’s a pretty interesting concept. It looks like they used the graphics engine from “The Sims.” You’ll see what I’m talking about. [Star Trek XI Blog]

[Film Gecko] has the first clip from the animated film 9. You might remember the trailer from a few months ago with the dope Coheed and Cambria soundtrack. This thing looks crazy.

Channing Tatum is blowing up this year with roles in Fighting, Public Enemies and G.I. Joe, but he apparently regrets not being able to play Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. You may not have formed an opinion yet, unless you watched the bootleg version of that film, but do you regret him not being in it? I’m sure I’m happy with the current state. [Filmonic]

One of our most anticipated films of the year, Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones has its first two pics online thanks to [Ace Showbiz]. Ever want to see what heaven looks like outside of the 1998 Robin Williams film, What Dreams May Come? There are some words from Jackson about the project, as well.

Angels & Demons comes out in just a few weeks and Sony/Columbia has announced a third film in the series is on its way. Dan Brown, writer of two Robert Langdon-starring novels “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels & Demons,” just finished the third book in the series, titled “The Lost Symbol.” It will focus on the secret society of the Freemasons. The book is due to be released September 15, 2009. The movie, much later. I’m down. [Fused Film]

Just as we began, we end today’s news with another first film image. This time it’s the Peter Jackson-produced Neill Blomkamp-directed District 9, which has been soaring below the radar, but will be released toward the end of this sumer. [SciFi Cool]

As usual we are bringing you the best in movie posters from around the world/internet here today. Why? ‘Cause it’s a Friday.  Every Friday we give you all the goods on the best film poster artwork around.  Check out our Movie Posters sidebar link for past editions.  On with the production.

This week we have the following posters: Astro Boy, two Angels & Demons posters (one is French), and Adventureland (click title for our early review!).  How’s that for A’s?  A poster for a movie titled Daytime Drinking (who doesn’t?), one for the Guest of Cindy Sherman, as well as Nursery University (where Sean Kemp failed to graduate from).  We also got a hold of The Dungeon Masters for all of you D&D (or former) Dungeons & Dragons fans out there.  Peep the eyes on the poster to excite yourselves.

Sam Mendes has a new movie coming in Away We Go.  We also have a special Fast & Furious one sheet for all you ruskies out there.  Many of you are probably licking your chops for this fall’s Harry Potter film, so we have 4 new character one sheets for Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince posters for you.  Which begs the obvious question, is there a half-Crip prince as well?  Additionally there are two new In The Loop posters with the famous Shepard Fairey/Obama artwork rip-off, and two more Star Trek posters, these of the international variety.  Finally, an homage to Back To The Future is made with the FAQ About Time Travel film poster.  Get it?  Good.  We added artwork for the film Unbeatable Harold late…bonus!  Thanks to IMP Awards for their contributions.  Enjoy!

MSN.com has paired up with the new Dan Brown adaptation, Angels & Demons, to bring you a series of challenging online games for prizes, including a trip to Rome.

This would normally be non-news to me, but I remember getting hooked on the Google/The Da Vinci Code contest a couple of years ago and it was fun as hell.

I screwed around with this new “Path of Illumination” contest for a long time last night and it’s safe to say I will be as addicted to this as I was last time. It’s far more challenging and indeed frustrating, but so far they’ve made for good brain-teasers. If you remember the problem-solving logic question about the fox, the chicken and the chicken feed, this is that to an exponential degree. Hopefully you can have fun with it, like I have to this point.

Click here to play.

If you missed it, we posted the full trailer for the film yesterday. You can check it out here.

For those that might not recall the fox/chicken/chicken feed problem, here it is explained by the BBC version of “The Office:”

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Star Trek, Up, Land of the Lost, The Year One, Fast & Furious, G.I. Joe, Race to Witch Mountain, Angels & Demons, Monsters vs Aliens. All of their Super Bowl TV spots are here in this megalist. We’ve combined all the individual Super Bowl spot posts into this one, with full text included.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

There’s been a lot of hype about the Transformers sequel over the past few weeks. We were given the teaser poster, we put the movie up as one of our Top 20 Anticipated of the year, we’ve learned there wouldn’t be any Dinobots and now we have the first official footage from the film. Below is the Super Bowl spot for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It’s short. Only 30 seconds, but for anybody planning to check out the re-boot of Friday the 13th in a couple of weeks, you can expect to see a longer teaser attached to that. Behold the TV spot:

I LOVE that huge robot bursting through the freeway and emerging right at the end. That’s just beautiful. I’m also very happy to see a quick glimpse of a robot transforming into a car. It’s a magnificent sight.

You can indulge your nostalgia for the first film here and go back even further and pick up the 1986 animated film. All will help bide time until June 26th.

Star Trek

I’ve never seen an episode of “Star Trek” in my life. I’ve actually worked hard to avoid it. It’s always been around me in its several incarnations on TV, but I’ve managed to make myself sparse during those times. It’s the Klingons that I can’t look at. Like Worf. I could hardly stand to look at that guy through a commercial. Look at that thing. The stuff nightmares are made of. For the same reason, I’ve never seen any Planet of the Apes films. The faces are too difficult to look at for me.

There aren’t any Worf-like creatures in any of the Star Trek spots so far and I’m thankful for it. Here’s your chance to check out the Star Trek Super Bowl spot, below:

Is anybody excited for this who’s NOT a “Star Trek” fan already? I can kind of see the appeal. I think the involvement of J.J. Abrams was a good decision. It might help crossover into non-”Star Trek” fandom. What did you think of the TV spot? Did it really entice? Are you more into it, less into it or just the same?

Up

Certainly one of my most anticipated movies of the year, Pixar’s Up, has its Super Bowl TV spot online. It’s very similar to the teaser trailer that’s already out. There’s a short tag joke at the end, which is knew. A whetting of the appetite for sure. Of course not much needs to be revealed to get people on board for a Pixar film. They just need to know it exists. Check out the spot, below.

We’ve already previewed the film here. And as the TV spot suggest, you can see an exclusive clip from ‘Up’ at Disney.com. Unfortunately I can’t embed it for you, so here’s a direct link to that clip. I won’t spoil anything about it for you.

Meanwhile, I’ve been catching up on my “Empire” magazine reading lately and there’s a couple new pics from Up I hadn’t seen before. Here they are for you:

What did you think of the TV spot? Did you check out the clip? I look forward to any comment from a devout Pixar fan, like myself.

Land of the Lost

Here we are with another Super Bowl spot before the game has been played. This one is for the filmic adaptation of the TV series “Land of the Lost.” Land of the Lost stars Will Ferrell and Danny McBride (second billing!) and they go back in time and face dinosaurs, amongst other creatures. I guess after not having Dinobots in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, we’ll still be able to get our dino fix this summer.

I don’t know. Never seeing the show, I don’t have any connection to the material. It could be good. I think this spot will do well in terms of selling the movie to viewers tomorrow, and that’s its main goal. I’m happy Will Ferrell isn’t in some crazy sports comedy and it looks pretty epic. Brad Silberling directs his first big movie since the unfortunate Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. That one is obviously off the “franchise” train.

What do you think of this spot? Do you want to see the movie?

The Year One

This one is more of a scene from the film than just a TV spot. Kind of hard to believe you’ll see this one in it’s entirely during tomorrow’s game. That’d be $12 million! Whatever gets people excited about the film and makes them buy tickets, I guess.

The Year One is directed by Harold Ramis (Groundhog Day) from a script he wrote with “The Office” scribes, Gene Stupnitsky & Less Eisenberg. Michael Cera and Jack Black star as Oh and Zed, respectively, two caveman trying to survive before civilization. In the clip/TV spot below, you’ll also meet Kane and Abel, played by Paul Rudd and David Cross.

It looks pretty decent to me. I’d love it to be good and funny. I recall the buzz being not particularly strong from some test screening reviews I’ve read. I wish I was able to tell you myself if it was worthy or not.

UPDATE: It turns out that was just a clip. Here’s the actual Super Bowl spot.

This scene reminded me of a clip from the 1981 film, Caveman, starring Ringo Starr, that I’ve seen numerous types playing “Scene It” on the 360. Sadly, I couldn’t find the exact one. Here’s a clip of music being invented.

Fast & Furious

I wonder if the Super Bowl will be holding any more surprises tomorrow. We now bring you the Super Bowl spot for the third sequel (that’s number four) to The Fast and the Furious, the creatively titled Fast & Furious! This is the first Super Bowl spot we’ve posted for a film that’s already had a trailer released, so only slightly new footage. Of course, this is going out to the few people that watch the Super Bowl, too. Behold!

Vin Diesel used to be my boy when he was coming up. For those that know his first major film role was Saving Private Ryan, an even more in-depth education will lead you to knowing Spielberg had that role written into the film specifically for Diesel after seeing Vinny’s short film Multi-Facial, at Sundance. I bought the DVD and have always enjoyed the 20-minute short. It definitely displays Diesel’s acting chops and saddens me to know he’s been pigeon-holed into this crappy action stuff. Hopefully one day, he’ll break out like I know he’s capable of.

The complete short is below, but if you find it in your heart to buy the DVD, check it out here: Short 5 – Diversity.

G.I. Joe

I was never allowed to play with G.I. Joe’s as a kid, so I never got into them. I have no idea what any character’s name is. I know “Cobra” has something to do with that universe. So, my excitement for this film is less than zero. It wasn’t really increased by this TV spot. If you want to see what G.I. Joe has in store for you tomorrow during the Super Bowl, just check it out below.

Did you like it? Are you excited for this?

I don’t hold director, Stephen Sommers, in high regard. Remember Van Helsing? It is nice that it’s trying to find a spot in August though, which over the past 10 years or so (ever since The Sixth Sense) has extended the blockbuster season. I’m all for better movies spread around. I hope this is good for anybody that has an interest. Be sure to let me know.

About a year ago, a friend and I were recalling this old G.I. Joe commercial. For the heck of it, here it is below.

I hate nose bleeds.

Thanks to Superhero Hype for the heads-up.

Race to Witch Mountain

The first film-related TV spot set to air during the Super Bowl was made available today via MTV Movies Blog. The spot is for the Dwayne Johnson-starring Disney film, The Race to Witch Mountain.

The film is a remake of the 1975 film, Escape to Witch Mountain. Johnson plays, Jack Bruno, a modern-day Travis Bickle (only in that he drives a taxi), who is sought by a paranormal expert, Dr. Alex Friendman (Carla Gugino), to help protect two extraterrestrials from a dastardly organization who only want to use them for evil. Sounds dastardly.

With 30-seconds of airtime costing $3 million this year, this ad is costing Disney $6 million. Do you think it’s worth it? We’ll find out March 13th, I guess.

For comparison’s sake, here’s the first trailer.

As promised earlier here, we’ll bring you all the movie-related Super Bowl ads as they’re released on the net. There could be more coming before the game itself, and we’ll keep you updated.

Angels & Demons

As mentioned in my preview of the film, I’m actually looking forward to Angels & Demons, even though I wasn’t the biggest fan of The Da Vinci Code film. I just have some wishful thinking, hoping Ron Howard and Co. will have learned from their mistakes. I did think the book was pretty cool and would like it to be done justice on the big screen. Tom Hanks is my boy.

The following clip doesn’t really show off a hell of a lot. It’s 30 seconds long and essentially just shows a few flashes. We’ll apparently have to wait for the theatrical trailer to even get a remote sense of what to expect. I would imagine we’ll get that pretty soon, as the film’s slated for release May 15th.

What did you guys think of this spot? Was they’re really much of anything to help you get hyped? Are you looking forward to this at all?

Monsters vs. Aliens

I certainly never bothered to make my way to a Sobe booth to pick up 3-D glasses, so I can’t tell you about the dazzling things I witnessed in the additional dimension. For those of you that saw the ad, here’s your chance to relive it, and for those that missed it, here’s you chance to see it.

I think this has a chance to be good, actually. I’m not much for any other studios computer animated films, but Pixar’s, and this certainly has a vague resemblance to Monsters, Inc. (as these studios are apt to do), but I do like the eye/tongue/elbow/butt scanner joke.

For those that saw the TV spot in 3-D did it really enhance your enjoyment at all? For anybody not as ready and willing to outright reject the animated product of non-Pixar, what’s your level of interest in the movie?

For some extreme trivia, former “The Simpsons” writer and longtime friend of Wes Anderson (he played the wrestling ref in Rushmore), Wally Wolodarsky had a hand in writing the script.

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.