The Fastest Tour Guide in Vatican City

Grade: B



With so many movies coming out this summer, it's time I start catching up on writing about the ones I've already seen.

If I had to boil down the difference between Angels and Demons and its disappointing predecessor The Da Vinci Code, it's this: in Da Vinci, the characters sit around and have long talks about history. In Angels and Demons, the characters run around and talk about history. The difference isn't in the content, it's in the speed, and in a thriller that's all that matters.

In this book prequel made movie sequel, Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks with less mockable hair) is summoned to Vatican City when somebody gets some antimatter (not to be confused with Star Trek's red matter) and threatens to use it to blow up all the cardinals at conclave - where they go to pick the next pope. Filling in for Audrey Tatou in the "female who doesn't do much but listen to Langdon's history talk" department is Ayelet Zurer. She probably has even less to do, but she's likable enough not to distract.

Once there, they run around trying to save a new cardinal every hour, giving the movie a 24-style race-against-the-clock immediacy that makes this the fun summer movie Da Vinci wasn't. Clearly director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman got the memo not to let Angels and Demons drown in its exposition the way Da Vinci did. There's car chases, breathlessly delivered dialogue, and lots and lots of running.

Now, that's not to say they completley solved the exposition problem. Dan Brown's books have a lot of it, so at times Langdon feels less like the movie's hero and more like a tour guide, delivering Vatican City fun facts when not ducking bullets and putting together clues. But at least there's enough else going on that those fun facts never get to stop the movie cold. And while the big twist at the end isn't nearly as silly as it was in the book, it's still laughably implausible.

This time around, most of the movie's flaws were just as present in the book, so if you like the book, you'll like the movie. But while it's a large improvement over Da Vinci, there's still something about Langdon and his adventures that doesn't quite fit the action franchise template as well as its producers might wish. But since that's the way they went, I'll take silly over slow any day.