A few weeks ago I sat on the couch with little to do. My dad walked in after passing in the hallway a few times and threw a book at me, Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. It isn't very often that I will sit down and read a book, but I figured I'd give it a whirl since I had nothing else going on. I read the book in about a week, which is pretty good for me. I enjoyed the plot and characters very much and would recommend it to anyone. I wish I could say the same about the movie.
The movie loosely follows the original plot: the Illuminati, an ancient intellectual group, reappears in the world to take it revenge against the Catholic Church and its crimes against science. Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist, as called in to advise on the matter. What follows is a tour around Rome on an adventure to discover the ancient Illuminati lair and stop an anti-matter bomb from consuming the Vatican with an explosion of light.
I kept turning the pages of the book because Brown created a sense of excitement and always provided intricate clues that explored the streets and churches of Rome. The tangible tension between different characters which made me match the frustration Langdon felt as he tried desperately to solve the puzzles. The developing love relationship between Vetra and Langdon added to the plot intensity. The Arab assassin pierced the reader with fear. All of these were found lacking.
The movie was too rushed with too little explanation as to just how genius the Illuminati twist really was. The book's ending shocked me, the movie's ending did not. Even though I knew the ending when I saw the movie, it was just too predictable. There were, however, some things throughout the movie that added a bit of authenticity in relation to the book. Langdon's Mickey Mouse watch, the black cars speeding in and out of the streets of Rome, and the explosion of light over St. Peter's Square. I could not have imagined it more vividly.
Simply put, despite a few markers like the Mickey watch, the movie did not live up to the book (as usual). Some people might say that you cannot compare the book to the movie, that is just dumb. It is hard to not compare the two; I wouldn't need to point out the obvious differences and disappointments if the movie would have lived up to the book at least a little bit. It was cool to see the actual buildings and statues though, but it would have been cheaper to google them.
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