Angels & Demons

Angels & Demons

Its a little disorienting in “Angels & Demons,” when the Camerlengo, a priest entrusted with the pope’s duties between papacies, breaks into the locked enclave of the College of Cardinals and lectures them on centuries of church history. This is because “Angels & Demons” lives by a split-second schedule and a ticking time bomb that could destroy the Vatican.

Some of these men, many of them elderly, may die in minutes. The Commander of the Swiss Guard thinks he can evacuate St. Peter’s Square and hundreds of thousands of faithful in 15 minutes before an explosion vaporizes “a big chunk of Rome.” But I think a lot of monsignors back home are going to receive promotions.

The chase across Rome indeed, most plot details here are far from plausible. But having been told about the long war between the church and the Illuminati, religion and science, we’re grateful for the briefing; if nothing else it validates our curiosity. This kind of movie demands we be forgiving if we are, it promises only to entertain: which “Angels & Demons” does.

It was based on an earlier novel by Dan Brown than “The DaVinci Code.” Prof. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is at Harvard when he is summoned from a swimming pool by an emissary from the Vatican, and flown to Rome to face a crisis: A rare sealed vial of anti-matter has been stolen from CERN in Geneva; a note taking credit comes from the Illuminati, which has always hated us because once upon Galileo etc.

A “popular and progressive” pope has just died. The cardinals have been summoned to elect his successor. Four front-runners for this office have been kidnapped. They will be executed in succession at 8 p.m., 9 p.m., 10 p.m., 11 p.m., until the battery on the anti-matter vial runs out of juice at midnight and the faithful will see more than a puff of white smoke above Vatican City. I don’t recall if the Illuminati had any demands. Maybe it just wants revenge.

If that’s the case, why hide the vial at the end of a trail that can only be followed by clues found or guessed by Professor Langdon? Why not just blow up the place? What’s the point of the scavenger hunt? Was it all set up as a way to test Langdon’s encyclopedic knowledge? Are the Illuminati getting back at Langdon after he thwarted Opus Dei, another secret society, in “The DaVinci Code”?

I don’t know, and reader, I don’t care. Using his knowledge of Illuminati symbology, Langdon follows a trail through four Roman churches. He is uncannily lucky. Every clue he sees and they are deeply buried he interprets correctly. Good thing; miss one dungeon or misread one statue pointing the wrong way and he loses. His companion is beautiful and brilliant CERN physicist Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), whose father was murdered in the antimatter theft so that she can (a) explain batteries really do run down after a while; (b) request her father’s secret journals be sent from Geneva for reasons never very clear; and (c) race around with Tom Hanks.

Meanwhile, there is intrigue within Vatican City and plenty of red herrings amid all those red hats: The young Camerlengo (Ewan McGregor), adopted son of the late pontiffly figurehead, joins the professor’s desperate questing as does Stellan Skarsgard as commander of the pope’s protectors, Swiss Guard uniting behind Jeanne d’Arc hairdos inside conclave where Armin Mueller Stahl’s Cardinal Strauss presides over election because his sinister mien German accent absolutist views on church tradition suggest that since progressive pope died of suspicious causes during these troubled times it it may have been an inside job given this man’s singular focus on maintaining power (I forgot mention there has also been enough time for pontiff’s exhumation poisoning detection) all at breakneck speed, and with massive production values.

The film renders dramatically the interiors of the Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon, churches, tombs and crypts; the College of Cardinals looks both (a) very impressive, and (b) like a collection of elderly extras from Cinecitta.

The movie does not tilt its conflict between science and religion one way or the other. The professor is not religious, indeed seems agnostic but neither is the church portrayed as anti-science. Galileo would be happy that there is now a Vatican Observatory. If indeed they are scientists, better employ themselves not avenging ancient deeds but attacking modern fundamentalist cults.

The professor has an interesting exchange with the Camerlengo, who asks him if he believes in God. He says he believes that existence beyond his mind to determine is God’s. “And your heart?” asks the priest. “My heart is not worthy.” Agnostics and believers can both find something to agree with there; director Ron Howard does an even-handed job of balancing the scales.

So good, in fact, that after Howard said the church barred him from a few Vatican locales; and even though the reliable William Donohue of the Catholic League has denounced his film, “Angels & Demons” still got good notices from L’Osservatore Romano the official Vatican newspaper which called it a “harmless entertainment that hardly infringes on the genius and mystery of Christianity.”

And you know what, Mr. Howard? Would you let someone shoot a Dan Brown thriller in your living room?

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