I liked it enough, more as an action movie than a mystery novel, maybe, because it’s hard to get caught in the mystery of it all when you just need to wait for next scene to have the legendary professor pull something new out of his hat and explain everything to you.
And, it had good points, like Ewan McGregor that I think was very good in this film, and the Italian Favino :-p
The beginning makes you roll your eyes already, because there is this lab, at the CERN, where they manage to collect a bit of anti-matter, and nobody can be surprised when it is stolen… Of course it is. Messengers from the Vatican go to Harvard to ask Professor Robert Langdon’s help (Tom Hanks), after he’s been asking access to their archives for years.. He accepts obviously, otherwise no movie.
He goes to the Vatican and works with one of the scientists at that lab, and when they are let into the archives to consult some kind of book, she rips off a page because they’re in a hurry!!! Inspector Olivetti (Pierfrancesco Favino) is shocked at him: you stole a document? - it was her!! :-p
Maybe Langdon’s nicest moment :-p
They have a video of the anti-matter container but had no idea where it is, so the Camerlengo (McGregor) suggest switching off the lights sector by sector to see if they spot any change in the live video, but they do it so slowly it’s unbearable, it’s like ‘i’m switching off lights in sector 2 - ok proceed - doing it….. see any changes? - no, I’m switching lights back on, now moving on to sector…’ come on seriously?? They know that the battery is about to run out and then it’s be a very big explosion, and they go so slowly?? Unbearable, really.
Then they keep following the signals, because apparently the Illuminati abducted the Cardinals with the better chance to become the next Pope, and at the first place they run to they find a Cardinal dead, with the word Earth branded on his skin. Second place, piazza S. Pietro, another one dead with Air branded on him.
The scientist woman is reading her dead collegue’s diary but leaves it on a table’s drawer, unlocked, when she goes with the Camerlengo to see the Pope’s body to see if he was poisoned, and she think he was. Of course the diary is stolen, by head of Vatican gendarmerie commander Richter (Stellan Skarsgard).
Third place, they get into the church while a Cardinal is still burning alive, with branded the word ‘fire’, of course, and the bad guy is still there and he kills them all!! Poor Olivetti :-( Langdon saves himself by hiding under the church.
The killer is part of the Vatican gendarmerie, that’s how he surprises the police.
Fourth place, water, so a fountain at piazza Navona, I think, where the guy kills two carabinieri and throws the fourth cardinal into a fountain to drown with branded the word ‘water’. The poor man is still alive and Langdon tries to save him but it’s very heavy, but finally people understand that it’s for real and not a joke and they help him, and they save him, so the cardinal can tell him where they were kept prisoners: Castel Sant’Angelo. A secret passage links it to the Vatican, and it’s where the assassin was hiding. He doesn’t kill them, he tells them that killing them is not part of his job and leaves, but then his car explodes when he starts the engine.
They think now that there is another intended victim, the Camerlengo himself, and rush to the Vatican to find him in his study while Richter is trying to kill him, and some agents shoot Richter saving him. They find the ‘bomb, under S.Pietro, and they urge the woman to change the battery and make it safe again, but she says there is no time, it’s not safe, and she suggests leaving it there where it is and run away before it explodes, but the Camerlengo can’t bear the idea of S.Pietro exploding, so he shouts No! before taking the bomb himself and running out when he flies himself an helicopter (why was it outside already? who called an helicopter there?? Did I miss it?)
The bomb explodes up in the air, everybody’s safe, but for a moment they think the Camerlengo died, then a parachute appears in the sky and he lands like a hero and now everybody’s calling him a hero and wants him as the new Pope (madness!).
Right then, when everybody thinks it’s all over, Langdon finds out that it was all the Camerlengo’s plan to make the Church stronger - make the Church strong again!! said the guy before trying to destroy everything good his people ever did… oh no wait, I’m getting confused with the news now, let’s get back on track, to fiction, where the good ones actually win.
Langdon realizes the Illuminati never had anything to do with this, it was all the Camerlengo’s doing to protect the Church from itself and make it stronger, or so he says. To do this he killed the Pope, his adoptive father, and when he sees that he’s been found out, he sets himself on fire and dies. The new Pope is the surviving Cardinal, the Italian Cardinal Baggia, now Pope Luca.
Now, the ending part with the bomb was really nice, very cool, very effective, from the No! to the hero-like-landing, very powerful scenes, but I’m glad it ended this way because the scene when he got saved from Richter was all wrong! I mean, it would have been wrong had he turned out to be the good one, but since he wasn’t then it’s ok! :-)
ITA angeli e demoni
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