Angels & Demons

The Gist: Robert Langdon is summoned to the Vatican when an ancient and powerful enemy of the Catholic Church, the Illuminati, resurfaces and threatens to wipe Vatican City off the map. The threat is taken seriously when a CERN scientists confirms the existence of a new and extremely powerful explosive that she helped create and was recently stolen.

Angels & Demons is Ron Howard's sequel to his adaptation of Dan Brown's wildly successful The Da Vinci Code. Angels & Demons the book, however, actually marked the inception of the Langdon character, so technically this would be a prequel.

I recently finished the book and that's when I pushed this title to the top of my Netflix queue. Honestly, I wasn't expecting as good a movie as this is. As adaptations go, this one stayed faithful to the book in providing the basic facts, and deviated what was necessary to fit the story in a couple of hours and keep the action going.

Tom Hanks is back as Robert Langdon, flanked by Ayelet Zurer as the scientist. Ewan McGregor, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Stellan Skarsgård, Pierfrancesco Favino, and the handsome Nikolaj Lie Kaas round up a well cast group of actors.

The Bottom Line: If you've read the book, don't be concerned about being disappointed by the movie version. It's a well written story, with good acting, and a lot of fast paced action.

Grade: 7