Highly improbable but mindlessly entertaining sequel to “The Da Vinci Code” - adapted from Dan Brown’s prequel written in 2000 -- in which religious symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) and a scientist (Ayelet Zurer) join forces with a church official (Ewan McGregor) to try to prevent the destruction of the Vatican and the murder of a quartet of kidnapped cardinals by following a trail of clues left across Rome by the secretive Illuminati cult of anti-Catholic intellectuals. Though director Ron Howard has toned down some of the book’s most egregious elements, the historical church is still portrayed as a relentless and at times violent foe of science, but the film ends on a positive note from a faith perspective and the final image of the Church is relatively positive. L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. (PG-13) 2009

Angels & Demons (Full Review)

“Be careful. These are men of God,” one of the bad guys ominously advises Tom Hank’s symbologist Robert Langdon in novelist Dan Brown’s fact-wrenching prequel to his 2003 fabrication “The Da Vinci Code.”

But “Angels & Demons” (Sony/Columbia) -- reworked for the big-screen as a sequel -- mostly belies the jaundiced view of religion that statement would suggest, despite retaining many of the book’s historical inaccuracies and Gothic imaginings about secret doings at the Vatican. Well, mostly.

Though the Vatican allegedly nixed location filming (as they do most films) - a fact director Ron Howard has tried to use for promotional advantage - L’Osservatore Romano has recently dismissed the film as “harmless entertainment,” though noting, of course, the bountiful factual errors and the fact that the film has “little to do with the genius and mystery of Christianity.”

Even William Donohue of The Catholic League - which had issued a brochure debunking the book -- has opined, “Enjoy it for the fun of it, but don’t be seduced by Brown-Howard into thinking it is based on historical facts.” Well said.
The highly improbable but mindlessly entertaining story finds the non-believing Langdon allied with Vatican officials, with whom, viewers will recall, he had been at loggerheads in “The Da Vinci Code.” They’re trying to prevent the threatened destruction of the religious city-state and the looming branding and murder - one per hour -- of a quartet of kidnapped cardinals. In Brownspeak, these are the “preferiti,” or frontrunners for the Papal office.

The putative masterminds of this nefarious plot are the Illuminati, a centuries-old cult of anti-Catholic intellectuals, thought extinguished, but now hellbent on revenge for age-old Church persecution. Langdon, you see, is the only one who can decipher the Illuminati codes.

Of course, he agrees to help, and follows a trail of clues left across Rome behind these impending crimes, joined on the hunt by beautiful Italian scientist Vittoria Vetra (Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer). Their relationship, incidentally, never blossoms into romance.

Vittoria’s colleague - Father Silvano who is both priest and scientist (and in the book, her adoptive father) -- was the first victim of the Illuminati plot. At CERN, the world’s largest particle physics lab in Switzerland, he and Vittoria had conducted secret research on antimatter, a mysterious substance with a huge potential for destruction, a canister of which has been stolen by the murderer and planted somewhere within the papal capital, imperiling the entire complex.

Adding urgency to the chase is the fact that the church’s cardinals have gathered in conclave to elect a new pope. In the absence of a pontiff, church leadership has fallen to the young Camerlengo (Italian for chamberlain) Patrick McKennna (soft-spoken Ewan McGregor) who becomes an ally to Langdon and Vittoria in their investigation.

As the partners high-tail it from one stop to the next trying to save the cardinals from meeting their fate at the hands of a diabolical assassin (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), and navigating the respective turfs of the Gendarmarie, who function as local police, in the person of Inspector Ernesto Olivetti (Pierfrancesco Favino), and the Swiss Guard that protects the pope, headed by the distinctly frosty Commander Richter (Stellan Skarsgard).

Director Ron Howard’s adaptation is a better movie per se than “The Da Vinci Code,” and more importantly, less overtly offensive than that film. Christ’s divinity is never questioned, and murderous albino Opus Dei monks are nowhere to be seen.

Here, Langdon actually works with the Church officials to foil the plot, though he does have to spout Brown’s historical and religious poppycock -- particularly about the Church’s historical antipathy to science, and its bloodthirsty hounding of the Illuminati - and deliver it with a reasonably straight face. 

And throughout much of the film, church officials - principally, the General Elector, Cardinal Strauss (Armin Mueller-Stahl) - seem overly guarded, uncooperative, and more ambitious than concerned about the fate of the possibly endangered populace. But, as in most mysteries, things are seldom what they seem.

To recount the innumerable mistakes or deliberate distortions underlying Brown’s narrative would take many pages, and the book is not our purview. But at least a few of the most egregious can be examined here.

The real-life Illuminati, for instance, a short-lived secret brotherhood of 18th century “enlightened” thinkers, who rejected the church’s proclamation of revealed truth, were only active for about 10 years, beginning in 1776. Yet Brown would have us believe they were just driven underground. Amusingly, he identifies the great astronomer Galileo, who died in 1642, as the group’s founder, and claims membership for sculptor and architect Gianlorenzo Bernini, who died in 1680.

Far from being enemies of the faith, moreover, both these men lived and died, by all reliable accounts, as faithful Catholics, despite the treatment Galileo received at the hands of misguided church officials.

Brown would have us believe only a cardinal can be elected pope. In fact, any adult male Catholic is, at least in theory, eligible.

As for those “preferiti,” although each conclave has its outstanding candidates, their numbers vary and their status is strictly informal. Similarly, he mistakes the title “great elector” for an actual church office.

Far graver than these errors is the basic premise behind the supposed conflict between the Catholic Church and the fictional Illuminati, namely, the church’s purported opposition to all forms of scientific progress which, Langdon ludicrously alleges, led to a long-ago massacre of some of the original Illuminati.

While the dialogue includes debate about how to reconcile faith and research the church comes off as historically opposed to the latter. In reality, need we say, the church currently resists only those scientific practices that transgress against the dignity of the human person, and, of course, does so peacefully.

This caricature also ignores, among other obvious facts, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Established in its modern form by Pope Pius IX in 1847, the academy -- dedicated to promoting “the progress of the mathematical, physical and natural sciences” -- has roots reaching back four centuries.

Scientific matters aside, there’s also talk of a so-called “Great Castration” during which Pope Pius IX had the male organs of every Vatican statue removed. In fact, fig leaves were added at different times by different popes.

Screenwriters David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman’s script tones down much of what was offensive in the book, and the ending is radically different in several important respects. Without giving any spoilers, suffice to say, the changes are all for the better. Though teasing viewers with Agatha Christie-like red herrings, they take care this time not to unduly offend.           

The final image of the Church is relatively positive, and the film actually ends on an affirmative note from a faith perspective. And ironically - given Howard’s location filming restrictions - Vatican City looks quite splendid, with majestic aerial shots while the Hollywood recreations of St. Peter’s Square, the Sistine Chapel and other locales are, as noted by L’Osservatore Romano, “magnificent.”

Though the film is rarely dull (if overlong), the story is hardly more textured than an average episode of “C.S.I.,” perhaps less so. The characters are strictly one-dimensional, and one is always aware of plot contrivance.

Final twists notwithstanding, the action is all too predictable. There’s rarely a believable sense of danger, except perhaps for a tense Vatican Archives sequence where Langdon and a guard find themselves locked in one of the airless, hermetically sealed rooms.

L’Osservatore Romano’s editor Gian Maria Vian rightly opined that the film posed no danger to the church. “It only confirms the centuries-old fascination with our faith and our symbols.”

So see it if you must, for its thriller aspects, or for its highly picturesque Catholic trappings. But seek the truth elsewhere.

Movies have been evaluated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting according to artistic merit and moral suitability. The reviews include the USCCB rating, the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief synopsis of the movie.

The classifications are as follows:

• A-I -- general patronage;
• A-II -- adults and adolescents;
• A-III -- adults;
• A-IV**
• L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
• O -- morally offensive.
  

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