Masand's movie review: Angels & Demons doesn't make much sense

HOLY MESS: Go in without any expectations and perhaps you will be engaged.

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Cast: Tom Hanks, Ayelet Zurer

Direction: Ron Howard

Angels & Demons is a better film than The Da Vinci Code of which it is a follow-up. But let's face it, that's hardly a great achievement!

When a progressive-minded pope passes away, a global cabal of cardinals must choose a new head of the Catholic Church. Ancient secret society the Illuminati resurfaces at this point and kidnaps four cardinals who are all possible candidates for the job, vowing to bump off the holy men hour after hour.

What's more having stolen a vial of ultra-combustible anti-matter from CERN, the big physics research centre near Geneva, they're threatening to blow up the Vatican into smithereens. No wonder the Church must swallow its pride and call on Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks once again) to solve an array of clues and riddles that could lead them to the priests and the bomb before time catches up with them.

Accompanied by beautiful Italian physicist Vittoria Vetra (played by Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer), Langdon chases around the cobbled streets of Rome, gains access to the Vatican's secret archives and decrypts ancient codes to uncover the Path of Illumination, a sort of obstacle course that wends its way through a bunch of Roman landmarks, at each of which a cardinal is to be sacrificed in some dramatic manner related to the four elements – Earth, Air, Fire and Water.

All through this hurried race you're subjected to Langdon's non-stop discourse about history and religion and the significance of Roman architecture, and every now and then Vetra pitches in with her own schpiel on science and the repercussions of its misuse.

Meanwhile, inside the Vatican there's still more religion-versus-science jabber-jabber being thrown at you by Ewan McGregor who plays the Camerlengo or the priest in-charge before a new pope is elected.

Truth is, when it isn't knocking you out senseless with all its boring bak-bak, Angels & Demons occasionally works as a race-against-the-clock thriller, with some nail-biting moments like that chilling confrontation between Langdon and the shadowy killer at a Bernini fountain.

Sadly the problem here is that the weaknesses far outnumber the strengths. The clunky screenplay never allows the audience any thrill of discovery as they follow Langdon in his treasure hunt, and the dialogue is crammed with too much unnecessary detail about all things scientific and religious. By the time the end credits roll you feel you've finally escaped from a boring college lecture.

Tom Hanks holds up the film's improbable plot with a committed performance as Langdon, investing likeability into a character who can be so dreadfully dull.

Angels & Demons doesn't make a lot of sense – guns go off in the church, priests fly helicopters, and secret pathways leading in and out of the Vatican can be found at every corner – but it's these hokiest bits in the film that are in the end the most fun. Alas, there isn't enough of it!

I'm going with two out of five and at best an average rating for director Ron Howard's Angels & Demons, adapted from the book by Dan Brown. Go in without any expectations and perhaps you'll be engaged.

Rating: 2 / 5 (Average)