Angels & Demons (2009, Howard)

"Fellas, you called me." -Robert Langdon, Angels & Demons (2009)

Ugh. If I had to review this film in one word, that would be it.

Let's start with the fact that Dan Brown may not be the world's greatest writer, but contrary to some elitist opinions, he's actually an extremely skilled writer of the pseudo-political/technological thriller. His books are the kind where you devour hundreds of pages at a time, continuing to read at a breakneck speed and page forward to keep pace with the momentum of the protagonist and the unspooling plot.

Enter Ron Howard, champion of the mediocre. Ron Howard appears to be one of the nicest guys in Hollywood, and I have to assume that he's exactly that, treating both actors and crew with nothing but complete respect and kindness. It would go a long way to explaining his current status as seeming Hollywood royalty, considering the fact that almost every one of his films is generic mediocrity that panders to the multiplex crowd and the lowest common denominator. And based on his track record of always attempting to please the senseless masses, it comes as no surprise that he'd miscast universally-loved Tom Hanks in the ill-fitting role of Robert Langdon. This is a character that was originally conceived with Harrison Ford in mind-- picture the schoolteacher persona from Indiana Jones taking center stage and solving puzzles sans whip and fedora, but instead solely through intellect and spectacles. The reason for Ford seems to be a likeness to author Dan Brown himself, and Ford's visage a romanticized version of Brown's. Nevertheless, the Langdon is obviously based on 80's Ford, something that Ford himself is now too long in the tooth to embody. Of course, leave it to Howard to not understand this fact and to pursue Ford for The Da Vinci Code, before settling on Hanks after Ford was unavailable.

I have yet to see the film version of The Da Vinci Code, a result of the presence of the mediocre Howard and the miscast Hanks, after thoroughly enjoying all of Brown's books for the light, fluffy beach-reads they are, and not wanting to witness the elements of the books unsuccessfully butchered. Just as Angels & Demons was the stronger, though less successful of the two, so have I heard that Angels & Demons is the stronger of the two film adaptations. So it was that I decided to kill a couple of hours waiting for a friend to arrive at LAX, when there was nothing left playing in theatres that I was genuinely interested to see.

Hanks does better in the role that I had anticipated. He puts a lid on the usual Hanks' enthusiasm and off-kilter boisterousness, yet doesn't quite sink into the kind of tedious, self-imposed gravitas that marked his performance in Saving Private Ryan. And, of course, he returns to the role of Langdon without the long-haired coif of Da Vinci that made him a veritable laughing-stock. Nevertheless, Hanks lacks the two primary aspects required of the role; I don't buy him as either the intellectual professor or the hidden athlete. He's too everyman with a homey demeanor to capture the requisite intellectual, bow-tie precision; and he's too doughy and complacently settled to believably rip out with Langdon's more athletic side. It's a shame when someone like Patrick Wilson (Little Children, Watchmen), admittedly less of a marquee name, would have made such a spot-on Langdon.

The supporting cast are filled with some wonderful actors-- Stellan Skarsgard, Ewan McGregor, Armin Mueller-Stahl-- but they're either phoning in their performances or just given so little to work with in the scope of the story structure that the difference is negligible. And actress Ayelet Zurer doesn't fare so well as to come off as simply useless; she unfortunately borders on the obnoxious and annoying.

Howard tries his best to make the film a visual affair, and I suppose there's some kind of effort to make the technology sound convincing; but he fails on both counts. Whereas Brown has a facility to blow through technology and junk-science making it sound plausible enough to proceed with the plot, Howard trips and stumbles over his own feet right out of the starting gate. From there Howard fails to capture what makes the books such page-turning adventures; instead of little mysteries and plot details building suspense and continuously accelerating the speed toward the impending climax, Howard ticks off each little mystery as it appears, explaining it immediately and keeping things in a constant state of deflation.

By the time the film has come to an end, we're past the point of caring about the plot or any of its characters. This is multiplex fodder at its most banal; something that may hold your attention for its overlong running time, or may not, yet which hardly matters as the likely nap is probably equally invigorating; and something that will find any partial recall hours later a larger mental challenge than the viewing experience itself.

4/10