I never bothered to watch the Da Vinci Code thanks to the negative reviews and overlong running time. Fortunately Howard and his Vatican baiting posse have ensured no previous experience necessary for his second attempt at adapting one of Dan Brown mega successful airplane religious plot boilers.
This time the plot is even more far fetched than the original, which at least had some basis in reality, no matter how thinly stretched it might have been. This time around a progressive Pope has just died suddenly and the Illuminati (secret organization, don't you know) have kidnapped four Cardinals who are the front runners to become the new Vicar of Rome (The Pope to you and me).
They plan to kill each one of them in suitably imaginative serial killer fashions, before detonating an Anti Matter bomb somewhere in the Vatican. Like I said pure fantasy land this time around, I'm sure the Vatican boys just curled up in laughter at this one.
Tom Hanks plays Robert Langdon once again, a less charasmatic Indiana Jones character who has obviously borrowed an avatar from James Cameron's new movie in order to phone in his entirely forgettable performance. No doubt he was laughing all the way to the Vatican bank.
Believe it or not Ewan Mcgregor is in this one, you'd have thought he'd have had enough of playing priests belonging to ancient relgions to last a life time. I guess he really must be hurting on those mortgage repayments, eh? He plays Cameriango Patrick Mckenna, mercifully for once, nearly using his own accent. He is the adopted son of the recently deceased Pope, and assists Langdon in his investigation to uncover the whereabouts of the kidnapped Cardinals and the bomb. Surprisingly he gives a reasonably textured performance that certainly sheds light on a more complex character than what he played in his other warrior priest role. He has the majority of the best scenes in this film, and plays the audience pitch perfect through to the final act.
The non love interest is Ayelet Zurier played by the sultry Vittoria Vitra, a particle physicist who is sent by CERN to assist the Vatican in finding the Anti Matter bomb. It's a thankless role, with her standing around or running around a lot in order to make Tom look good and give something for the guys to drool over in a very top heavy masculine movie.
Other notable performances are Stellan Skarsgard, who plays the Vatican Security chief and Armin Mueller-Stahl playing the mercurial Cardinal Strauss. Both play their characters well, amping up the smugness and political double play that you'd expect in a Vatican based movie.
The movie has some serious pacing issues, the first half is labouriously slow at times, with sluggish, top heavy exposition sequences of pseudo art history and consipracy stories. My concentration wavered several times in coming to understand the loopy logic of the puzzles. You can see Howard struggled here, as there are dozens of tacked on, over dramatic car journeys through the Roman streets.
Somehow he manages to avoid grinding to a complete halt, and actually manages a half decent, if rather obvious final act, where some reasonably adept scripting allows the movie to sprint to its climax, albeit with the help of a some decidedly dodgy CGI.
Not the complete snoozefest I was fearing, but defiinitely keep some caffine tablets handy for the first half.
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