Angels & Demons is a big-budget summer thriller that wants to be smart and exciting at once. It mostly fails at both. Based on Dan Brown’s novel, the film follows Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) as he races to stop a terrorist plot that threatens to destroy Vatican City. The setup is clever, the action is loud, and the execution is hollow.
Trailer, via Sony Pictures Entertainment.
The Case Against the Vatican
The movie opens with Langdon investigating the murder of four cardinals. He discovers that the murders were carried out by members of the Illuminati, a secret society that has supposedly been destroyed for centuries. The Illuminati are seeking revenge against the Catholic Church for their suppression. This sets up a conflict between ancient conspiracy and modern faith.
It’s a promising premise. But the film doesn’t dig into it. Instead, it treats the Illuminati as a shadowy group with vague grievances and no real agenda beyond chaos. Their plan is to release antimatter stolen from CERN and detonate it in St. Peter’s Basilica during the conclave to elect a new pope. The logic behind this is never explained. Why would a group want to destroy the Vatican? What does that achieve? The movie never answers.
Tom Hanks and Ewan McGregor
Tom Hanks plays Langdon with his usual charm and intelligence. He’s a professor who can explain complex theories while running from assassins. That combination worked well in The Da Vinci Code. Here it feels worn thin. Hanks does his best with limited material, but the script doesn’t give him many ideas to play.
Ewan McGregor appears as Vittoria Vetra, a physicist who knows about the stolen antimatter. She’s meant to be a love interest and a sidekick rolled into one. The romance is rushed and unconvincing. Their scenes together are pleasant but forgettable. McGregor brings energy, but there’s no chemistry.
The villain is a priest named Carlo Ventresca, played by Alessandro Nivola. He’s a conflicted man who believes the Illuminati’s cause is just. His performance is competent, but the character is underwritten. He’s a terrorist with no motive, and the film doesn’t care enough to make him one.
The Vatican Tour
The bulk of Angels & Demons is a chase through the Vatican. Langdon and Vetra travel from St. Peter’s Square to the Sistine Chapel to the Castel Sant’Angelo. Each location is filmed with grandeur, and the production design is impressive. But the tour serves the spectacle over the story. We see beautiful architecture, but we don’t learn anything about the people who built it or why it matters.
The climax involves a dramatic confrontation atop St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s tense, but it’s also hollow. The resolution depends on a deus ex machina that defies logic. The Illuminati’s plan is stopped, but the film doesn’t bother explaining how. It just cuts to black.
A Long, Tedious Stretch
The middle section drags badly. There’s a scene where Langdon explains the nature of antimatter to Vetra in a hotel room. It’s supposed to be educational, but it comes across as exposition padding. The film spends too much time telling us what it’s about instead of showing us.
There’s also a sequence involving the Swiss Guard and a rooftop chase. These are energetic, but they feel disconnected from the main plot. They’re fun to watch, but they don’t advance the story.
The pacing suffers from the film’s length. At 132 minutes, it’s a bloated runtime for a story this thin. Scenes that could be trimmed are left in, and the result is a movie that overstays its welcome.
What Works
Not everything is bad. The film has a few moments of genuine tension. The opening murder investigation is well done, and the chase through the Vatican is visually striking. The music score, composed by Hans Zimmer, is effective. It builds suspense without overwhelming the dialogue.
The cast is professional across the board. Even the minor roles are filled with recognizable faces. That’s a credit to the casting director, not to the screenplay.
The film also gets some of the science right. The antimatter concept is based on real physics, and the movie takes care to explain it clearly. That’s rare in Hollywood, and it’s a small victory.
Ranking the Elements
If you had to rank the elements of Angels & Demons by quality, the order would look like this:
- The visual design of the Vatican locations
- The performances by Tom Hanks and Ewan McGregor
- The score by Hans Zimmer
- The science explanations
- The pacing and editing
- The overall narrative coherence
The film is strongest when it’s showing rather than telling. Its weakest moments come when it tries to be clever with ideas it doesn’t fully understand.
The Bottom Line
Angels & Demons is a disappointment. It has all the ingredients for a great thriller: a charismatic lead, a mysterious conspiracy, and a setting full of history. But it never commits to any of them. The Illuminati are a threat, but the film never explains why they matter. The Vatican is a backdrop, but the characters never engage with its meaning.
The movie is entertaining in patches, but it’s forgettable in total. It’s the kind of film you’ll enjoy while watching it and forget five minutes later. There’s no lasting impact.
It’s a failure of ambition. The filmmakers wanted to make a blockbuster with brains, but they settled for a blockbuster with explosions. The explosions are loud, but they don’t mean anything.
The final score for Angels & Demons is 4.8 out of 10.
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