Angels & Demons (Ron Howard 2009)
Posted on May 29 at 17.04, 2009 by Eric Mahleb
There once were fairly cute and entertaining (albeit one-dimensional) films such as Cocoon, Parenthood, Night Shift and Willow. Then came more ambitious undertakings, attempts at more grown-up and deeper film making. But with films such as Backdraft, Apollo 13, Ransom, The Paper, EdTV and Far and Away, also came inconsistency and a strong penchant for cheap and superficial handling of emotions and relationships. A clear commercial angle, which had already started to emerge in the 80s, came blossoming in the 90s, a full-force proclamation of cinema as first and foremost a tool of entertainment with profit-making capabilities. And although i have yet to watch Frost/Nixon, it is probably safe to say that for the past nine years Ron Howard has been continuing on his path of mediocre but commercially successful film making, with Angels & Demons being the culmination of everything that is wrong with this type of cinema.
If The Da Vinci Code failed to inspire, Angels & Demons tries so hard to bring movement, excitement and action that it forgoes any attempt at plausibility in the process. This film is simply two hours filled with a couple of people chasing other people while solving riddles about the Illuminati in the process. Now you may be thinking that this sounds pretty good, except that it isn’t. As i watched Tom Hanks playing the hotshot academic Robert Langdon, i found myself longing for the early Indiana Jones, or for Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, and even for Jacques Clouseau. Anything but this cheap and non-believable caricature of a detective chasing after villains who seem more keen on playing riddles than on doing the job.
I did enjoy one thing however, and it is not the absurd sight of a skydiving pope wanna-be or the loose connections with a Bush administration that could have resorted to unspeakable evil to force its values upon the vulnerable masses. Nor was it the fairly obvious mean characterization of the sometimes stereotypical Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd to provide for an (un)expected twist at the end. No, the thing that i enjoyed was…hmm…i can’t remember. Maybe it was that the film ended.
You: 
Loading ...
| Me: 
|
|
One Response to “Angels & Demons”
-
Angels and Demons Movie Review | CardWrite.com Says:
September 28, 2010 at 21.38[...] http://www.yume.co.uk/angels-demons Director / Actor / Actress on this movie: Ayelet Zurer, Ewan McGregor, Ron Howard, Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd, Tom Hanks Give your rating on this movie: (No Ratings Yet) Loading … Share this: [...]