Based on the popular Dan Brown novels, his stories go into deep fiction and sometimes mess with religion that displeases certain demographics.
One big problem that a lot of people have with these films is the poor writing structure. It mainly due to Brown's writing in the book as the author seems to have forgotten the function of the internal monologue. With director Ron Howard being faithful to the writing, we hear the characters talk so much exposition, they were making spoon-feeding go out of fashion.
Despite all those noticeable problems, I ended up liking The Da Vinci Code and just about giving Angels & Demons a passable rating.
The films beginning was a bit messy with a big plot hole already being noticed. However, we were moving along and starting to build-up to what Tom Hank's characters latest challenge is. The action and Hans Zimmer's score was thrilling me, but I was not totally invested in the story.
Thankfully, the third act managed to save the film in my opinion. There is a nice twist, and that therefore enhanced the build-up to the final action set-piece which ended up being rather tense and thrilling.
Like with all the other films, Tom Hanks is just going through the motions with his performance. It's not terrible, but Hanks is just not getting out of first gear. I think these are just an easy cheque-in-the-post job for the great man.
Felicity Jones managed to do something that Audrey Tautou and Ayelet Zurer couldn't do, and that is be a memorable companion to Hank's character. She felt valuable, proactive and certainly became a valuable cast member. The rest of the roles were all minor ones. Despite Irrfan Khan being underused, he does have a surprising amount of comedic moments that made me chuckle. Omar Sy had some nice moments and I would like to see in more features, and Ben Foster was great on screen despite not being in many scenes. I really hope Foster gets more roles as he never fails to impress me. If you don't know about him, check him out in 3:10 To Yuma, The Program and Hell Or High Water.
The big positives were certainly the score by the always great Hans Zimmer, the striking and sometimes disturbing imagery which contains great shots Italian architecture and landscape. Also the pacing was pretty solid and is likely to be the main reason why I like this trilogy more than the majority.
Most of the negatives come in the first two acts. There are various plot holes, it is trying to cram in too much info instead of giving us an exciting thriller. It is a shame the first two acts were not that good. While I was gripped with the finale, everything before it had me on the brink of not caring.
There is one negative I will mention. But it only came to me after seeing the film. When reading other reviews, it came to my knowledge the ending in the film is completely different to the one in the book. The novel's finale sounded much more interesting then the films predictable one. However, this is just a minor problem as I still enjoyed the film's version.
I think this will be another time when I am in the minority. While I know the common problems that people associate with this franchise, I still found fun with this. The action and pacing is what makes these films for me and this one certainly is no different.
I think this is just about better than Angels & Demons, but still not as strong as The Da Vinci Code. Unless you have liked this series of films, then I would probably wait till this out on-demand or on DVD. It's passable, but not enough to feel that it is worth paying money to see it on the big screen.
Rating: 7/10
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