The Secret Stand Up of Alex Mac

For a film  based on a highly successful and controversial thriller, 2006's The Di Vinci Code was a tremendous letdown. Talents were wasted all around. The cast, while carrying some heavy hitters like Tom Hanks and Ian McKellen, could not breath life into the story nor could direction by Ron Howard who, for being a competent director, put forth a downright horrible effort. The result was clunky, incomplete. How would a sequel measure up after such a subpar initial outing?

Surpringingly well, considering what could have been. If you are not familiar with the story, here's a quick run down. Harvard "symbologist" Robert Langdon (Hanks) is called upon by the Church to help in the hunt for a killer who has kidnapped the candidates to become the next pope. The assassin, supposedly a member of the secret society called the Illuminati, has threatened to kill one cardinal each hour publically in the Vatican while the world awaits the see who the next pope will be. At the end of this, the Vatican will be destroyed by a bomb containing antimatter stolen from CERN. The race to save the Vatican will expose a shocking conspiracy carried out by one man.

The plot line is far better than Di Vinci's, as is the book it is based on. Dan Brown has many flaws as a writer, including a disjointed style, formulaic plot structure, liberally paraded half truths presented as fact, and horrible characterization of women characters. But even with this, Angels and Demons contains enough twists to keep one enthralled. And maybe that is why this movie works better than its predeccesor: it is direct and does not get as lost as Da Vinci did in ancient lore. It is not amazing, but works as standard thriller fare.

The film itself makes up for the previous entry's shortcomings. Howard, clearly riding hot from Frost/Nixon (an amazingly gripping film), seems to control his chaos much better this time. So too does Hanks, who is able to drives things forwards even if he is not giving an award winning performance. Indeed, the only cast member who gives a particularly strong performance is Ewan McGregor as Camerlengo Patrick McKenna, the Pope's close aid who has temporarily assumed his authority after the pontif's death.

If you see this, you're not getting anything stellar but you are definately not getting the crap sack that the previous movie was.

Bottom Line: Angels and Demons is little more than an average Hollywood thriller. A fair book to film adaptation, the movie manages to succeed where its earlier entry failed but this cannot save it from mediocrity. Well, sort of mediocrity. Watch at your own discretion. At least it is not Wolverine...