Dan Brown is an international man of mystery, meaning that he creates stories that revolve around international mysteries, dark conspiracies, and extremely terrifying sequences. These jarring stories can often span across many different countries, locations, and regions, and he’s known to be good at what he does.
Dan Brown is responsible for writing the stories such as Inferno, The Da Vinci Code, Digital Fortress, Deception Point, and of course; Angels and Demons. However, when Ron Howard is set to adapt your book into a full-fledged feature film, I would be a bit skeptical too.
How to Download Angels & Demons
You can download the film from a digital store. You can also stream it. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice. Check out also the first film in the series, which is The Da Vinci Code (2006).
Download Angels & Demons – the Movie Review
The Story
The story follows a man named Robert Langdon, an American symbologist who always gets caught up in some of the most terrifying conspiracies.
This time around, he finds himself in Vatican City as he goes up against a top-secret society that is hell-bent on destroying it. In an effort to stop this madness, Langdon will have to go through many different clues and puzzles to solve, which will test his symbology skills to the highest of his abilities. As he deciphers the clues, he finds himself being led to different altars of science.
This is a long film, lasting for two hours and 18 minutes, and yet it could not do justice to the book. This was simply because of the fact that the book was really long, and to do it justice you would need to make more than one film of two hours. However, after a lot of vital content being cut from the script, this should have worked in Ron Howard’s style of filmmaking. Yet somehow, this turned out to be one of the most boring films in the Dan Brown film franchise.
Throughout the entirety of its runtime, Angels and Demons feels as if it has no story to tell. It’s almost as if these characters are going through these journeys for simply no reason, and there’s not enough action or adventure to justify anything. It’s also a slow film, but it’s somehow neglecting the character development that you’re supposed to do in a film of this caliber.
The Characters
The one thing keeping this film afloat in my opinion is the acting. Not only does this film have a fantastic cast, but they all also perform to the best of their abilities, bringing their A-Game to the set. Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon is a genuinely well-acted character, even though you cannot sympathize or empathize with them, you still feel emotionally connected to him due to Hanks’ performance.
Dr. Vittoria Vetra is also a fantastic character, acted really well by Ayelet Zurer. Of course, Ewan McGregor is in this and he makes his presence felt throughout the entirety of this film’s runtime.
The Visuals
In terms of the visuals, I like the camera work and the way it moves from place to place, as well as how shots are framed in terms of the mysteries that they’re showcasing. However, the lighting in this film is all over the place. That makes the color grading feel so much worse than the finished product. Angels and Demons feels like it has a yellow tint over it, the stereotypical Mexico filter that is popular in the film industry at the moment.
The Soundtrack
The one aspect where it does not miss is the music, composed by the best in the industry, Hans Zimmer. Zimmer composes a soundtrack that is classy, classical, and also intense. The music is a huge part of this film, so bringing that Italian feeling of being in a religious city with so much history to the soundtrack was an important aspect.
The Verdict
Angels and Demons could have been a much better film in my opinion, especially if you changed only a few things about it. The few departments that it needs more working were the script, the characters, the lighting, the editing and the color grading. Those might seem like small aspects of a film, but they are highly important and vital to making a good film. In the case of this one though, it simply misses out.
