Angels & Demons Rant! 0/10 Rating

First of all I have to give warning that this review will contain spoilers. I have always been the type of person that is never to put out by the adaptations of books to the silver screen. I have always said that they should be viewed as two separate entities and as long as the spirit of the story and characters were intact. Dan Brown is not a great writer, I enjoyed his books marginally, but I understand both as a folklorist and historian (yea I know they seem at odds) that there are major points of inaccuracy in his books. However, he deserves better than this. I have never said this about an adaptation before, but this is a PERVERSION of his work, and this, keep in mind is not a work that I am overly passionate about. This movie was an abomination, I wanted to get up and leave for the first time ever in my rather ridiculously long list of movies that I have seen in the theatre. Those that know me understand what this means, I like all movies, and generally can enjoy just about anything. Now lets start this long critique of this horrible movie.

First of all the assassin is absolutely horrible. In the book this character although not deep was fleshed out enough to be a terribly frightening villain. In this movie he is bland and faceless. In fact bland and faceless might be giving him to much credit. Also he is mostly neutral, when given the chance to kill Langdon and Vittoria he doesn't, instead he just walks off. It could have been terribly scary, instead he was a total zero.

The Camerlengo first of all is a horrible character in the movie. For some reason they changed his name to Patrick for no good reason what so ever. He is supposed to be an impressive figure, able to control any room he is in by the shear force of his personality. His is portrayed in the movie as almost simpering and about as charasmatic as Keanu Reeves on a downer.

The character of Leonardo Vetra is not present which is amazing as he is a key central character. He is shown once in the movie at the beginning but his name is changed and he is not branded, he is murdered and his eye taken out but that is it. He and his duality of priest and scientist was key to the plot, as well as the fact he was Vittoria's father. It was ridiculous that he was not in the movie and his key parts of the plot missing.

Maximilian Kohler is not present in the movie and he to is integral to the plot, and he is somewhat replaced by Commander Rictor, he is a major character in the movie, but was not present at all in the novel.

The key fact that is missing from the movie and is the absolute cornerstone of the novel's plot is the fact that the Camerlengo is the biological son of the late pope. This was the whole reason for the book in the first place, THIS WAS THE PLOT. It was the why this book was written it was the most key part of the plot and it was just gone. There was no explanation in the movie for why he did what he did, no explanation at all. He just ends himself by fire with no explanation what so ever. It was horrible, it essentially meant that the movie had no point, no explanation for why the events took place. It also means that along with Vittoria's father not being mentioned, that the most interesting parts of the characters were left out. It was ridiculous, I can't put it into words really, its like having a Harry Potter movie with Voldemort not being there. It was just silly.

Also the fourth cardinal was killed in the book, but saved in the movie, in a very dramatic scene that shouldn't have been there. He then became pope and the man who became pope in the book became a very old camerlengo. And more on that man, in the movie he was supposed to be a liberal progressive priest who was wise, open, and a very good character. In the movie he was portrayed as an arrogant old man stuck in his ways except for the last 2 minutes of the movie where he makes a sudden and a 180 of a character shift.

This movie was horrible, and if you liked the book at all avoid this at all costs. It barely has any resemblance. It seems they were trying to make a buck on the name but didn't want to give the book true representation. Oh yea, and they made it seem in the movie that this happened after the Davinchi Code, which is false and unneeded and just plain stupid. This is the first movie ever that I wish I had never seen, and the number of movies I have seen requires a number with 4 digits in it.