Okay, so you're a secret society forced into hundreds of years of hiding by a Catholic Church on whom you've spent that time planning revenge. You acquire, with no small effort, the perfect wherewithal to exact the same, and indeed the opportunity. So what do you do?
Simple. You use a similarly old set of silly clues that any moderate student of Italiana could solve to show where and when you'll be committing some pointless murders before the revenge is taken. This, then, is the premise of a not terribly exciting film, which hopefully for Dan Brown, isn't too representative of the book (which I doubt, unless Brown had prophecised the Large Hadron Collider).
In form, the movie isn't much that we have not seen before. A threat has been made upon somebody, clues are left, and someone has to stop a bomb going off before the movie is due to end. If even Naked Gun 2 and a half can instil some entertainment into such a premise, Ron Howard has no excuse for not managing this.
Tom Hanks plays our lead, reprising his role from every other film he's ever been in (bar Forrest Gump, where his character was likeable). He's Robert Langdon, a bog-standard university professor specialising in funny drawings, who seemingly gets called out to investigate stuff in the manner of 80s TV shows about people from average professions who investigate crimes outside of their day jobs and have more luck than the actual police. His performance here will surprise no-one.
Ewan Mcgregor plays a priest who is ostensibly the bastard love-child of Father Dougal and an Alec Guinness wannabe. Indeed, some of the latter scenes involving him and the College of Cardinals seem very similar to a young Obi Wan remonstrating with the Jedi council, only in sillier outfits and without a small, green muppet calling the shots.
Whilst the earlier adaptation of The Da Vinci Code was a decent film, if terribly inferior to the book, this is not the same. It is quite predictable and one-dimensional, and won't have me chomping at the bit for the next Dan Brown adaptation.
Rating:
Carl B Harrison
I totally agree OB.
I found it very difficult not to fall asleep while watching it.
10 min in you know who done it........ worst RH film ever and I'm very easy to please.
Philster
Well I don't even know where to start with this one.
I think the first thing is what the two reviews on here said so far is bollacks, well almost.
It may not have been the best film of the year but it's not the worst. Although it was a bit slow in places, it was still enjoyable once it got started. Certainly, it was predictable. More or less worked out the villian from the get go. So did my brother but his way of working it out was weird considering on what he based it on. However, for some, his theory may not have paid off.
I won't say it's one of RH's best but it's not the worst by far.
Angels & Demons is a film for pilgrim sightseers - marvel at the Vatican's lovely paintings as another corpse turns up.
And this one At one point Langdon bellows, "I need a map showing all the churches in Rome!" which is a hilarious bit of dialogue because you might as well demand a map showing all the bars in Milwaukee. Then again, that would lead to a more entertaining movie.
TNC 2
i hav 2 say tis is the best muvy ever NOT!
Wat a f***** pil of s***. Thot the other 1 was crap but tis taks the p***.
Hat f*** riligus films to start wit but tis is bolaks.
C xmen insted.
Chloe
Hi everyone,
i noticed the comments on this film, and have to say i disagree with those who didnt like it. i enjoyed it not as much as the last one but still really enjoyed it. i didnt work out who was behind it at all. It really had me stumpted. My friends said it was to do with the star rating how a couple of them worked it out as in the first one a famous actor played the villian, and the same was with this one. But when i looked at it there were two famous ones, and it could have been either. what i didnt realise was that the book is quite a bit different, and wrote before Da'Vinci Code, which is probably why AAD wasnt as good as the previous one. Ill be interested to see what they do with the lost symbol the next one in the series.