Signs and Wonders (and Dumbed Down Professors): My Review of Angels & Demons (Spoilers)

Since so many colleges and universities are threatening to shut down smaller departments (usually in the Humanities and Cultural Studies since we generally bring in less money than the Sciences), I propose that we merge ourselves and set up the new field of "Symbology." :)

Thanks to Dan Brown, author of the international bestseller, The DaVinci Code, which features the protagonist Robert Langdon, Harvard Professor of Symbology, we may be able to get some Hollywood money to fund our dwindling resources, yes?

I say all this with tongue in cheek, having gone to see the latest adventure of our Symbology prof (portrayed by Tom Hanks) over the weekend in Ron Howard's adaptation of Brown's novel, Angels and Demons. While I definitely preferred reading this prequel novel to the more popular DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons, as a movie and sequel, suffers from the same heavy-handed, didactic clumsiness of the first adaptation.

The plot? Well, let's see how I can clarify a convoluted mess. Basically, some enemy of the Catholic Church - an enemy done wrong by the Church centuries ago - steals some anti-matter from a Swiss lab to create an out-of-this-world explosion and then buries it underneath Vatican City, timed to go off at midnight during a moment of Conclave when Cardinals are meeting to select the next Pope. Meanwhile, four of the Cardinals - those favored to be elected the next Pope - have been kidnapped, and each one will be killed on the hour, beginning at 8 pm, until we get to the midnight climax. This enemy reveals itself to be the secret society called Illuminati, a scientific sect that wants to wage war against religion.

Funny, but in the page-turning book, I could accept this premise. In the movie, it felt rather foolish. Not least of which is the idea that police detectives would bring in some art history professor (because in the "real world" that's the discipline our famed symbologist would be studying) to help them decode a bunch of clues when they should have a professional decoder to do that for them. But, whatever. If there is anything I do like these popular books and movies for, it's that they actually make intellectual pursuits like the study of art history or theology or Medieval and Renaissance History relevant to today's world. I mean, any Hollywoood movie that champions us going into an archive (even if the Vatican would make it virtually impossible to gain access to it) to solve a terrorist threat is definitely a story I can get behind. Except when said story then proceeds to treat a 17th-century document as an ordinary book in which you could just tear out a page (yes, me and professorial colleagues who were with me in the theater let out a collective and audible gasp) because you're "on the run." That it's the female scientist, Vittoria Vetro (played by Ayelet Zurer), who does this - and not our responsible symbologist - says so much about how 1) women are portrayed as irrational and unintellectual and 2) scientists don't respect the work humanities scholars do. Had Langdon gone to her science lab and just toppled over one of her chemicals, she would be livid. Not least of which is the real possibility that, in a science lab, you could blow yourself up to kingdom come if you're careless, whereas, in an archive, you're just basically messing with the historical record - which has been responsible for inheriting and disinheriting whole groups of people or creating reasons for why we need to have wars or segregation or any other social evil. But I digress.

While Professor Langdon and his scientist female sidekick are led on a wild goose chase throughout Vatican City, as they attempt to solve the mystery of where our kidnapped cardinals and antimatter bomb are located by using the clues hidden in the great sculptures and architectural structures of the city, we are also introduced to the Camerlengo (played by an impressive Ewan McGregor, who - in my humble opinion - saves this movie from being completely forgettable and, had he had a more capable director, would have done wonders with this character), a young priest who presides over the Church during the time of the Pope's death and the time of a newly elected Pope. There's a plot twist involving the Camerlengo which, again, played out better in the book than it does here, but to add these details might have made this movie much longer than it needed to be.

Much of what is wrong with this movie adaptation is that Howard cut out all the wrong parts and put in the unnecessary elements. The dialogue is awkward and didactic - there is so much explaining to do because the audience is treated as if we're all dumb. For example, in one scene, Professor Langdon explains to Vittoria the conflict Galileo had with the Church - as if this "brilliant" scientist would not already know that history! Come on! Yes, I realize this conversation was for the audience's benefit - and the fact that they have to assume the general audience wouldn't know this bit of history is already part of the problem. I would also criticize the fact that Professor Langdon, he of the great mind to unravel complex Medieval and Enlightenment puzzles, doesn't know how to read Latin or Italian! No wonder the Vatican denied him access to the archives!

There was so much dumbing down going on that it distracted from the "complex" action adventure it was supposed to be. While the flashbacks seemed to mar the first movie, The DaVinci Code, I think a few historical flashbacks showcasing Galileo meeting with his secret Illuminati society might have been better placed in lieu of the expository dialogue. More importantly, I wish more was done to give the Camerlengo's back story, so that the ending is better understood. Without it, he just comes off as a (Spoiler alert!) deranged priest.

I believe it was Alfred Hitchcock who said that great classic novels and plays need not be messed with and made into movies. He preferred to mine the materials of short stories and hack novels, precisely because you could shape it up into a stellar movie. Dan Brown's novels of action adventure and pop academia are also hack inventions, which - believe it or not - make for excellent film adaptations. However, it does require a skilled filmmaker like Hitchcock - as opposed to Ron Howard - to turn an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. There were many times I wished this material had fallen into the hands of a Paul Greengrass (director of those Jason Bourne movies) or Darren Aronofsky, who would have fun with the symbolism. Because, what this film really needed was a reimagining of the novel for cinema.

At least, if there's anything worthwhile, the cinematography and art direction were lovely. Vatican City will benefit greatly from the boom in tourism. Which is why, I suspect, they weren't too caught up in criticizing the movie - except for not allowing production on the grounds of certain sacred spots. But really? A Ron Howard film, especially one of this caliber, should not be allowed to film inside the Sistine Chapel.