ANGELS & DEMONS

 

HEADLINE:  ** Mendacity & Whitewash **

Title:  ANGELS & DEMONS

Quality:  * * *     Acceptability:  -3

SUBTITLES:  None

WARNING CODES:

Language:  LL

Violence:  VV

Sex:  None

Nudity:  N

 

RATING:  PG-13

RELEASE:  May 15, 2009

TIME:  138 minutes

STARRING:  Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer, Stellan Skarsgard, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Bob Yerkes

DIRECTOR:  Ron Howard

PRODUCERS:  Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and John Calley

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS:  Dan Brown and Tad Hallowell

WRITERS:  David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman

BASED ON THE NOVEL BY:  Dan Brown

DISTRIBUTOR:  Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Entertainment

 

CONTENT:  (HH, AbAbAb, CC, B, LL, VV, N, A, D, M) Humanist science versus Christian religion storyline supporting a false materialistic worldview that strongly supports the humanist position against the Bible and Christianity, with some very, very pro-Christian statements that, however, are unconvincing to the agnostic hero and movie includes many anti-church, anti-Christian, anti-faith barbs, smears and insinuations, plus and a resolution with positive portrait of Catholic Cardinals; five obscenities and five profanities; several acts of intense violence, including an eyeball on the floor of a laboratory, cardinals are literally branded with ambigrams, pope's assistant brands himself, people shot, cardinal burned to death, attempted drowning, blood spurting from a man whose lungs have been punctured, people blown around by explosion, parachutist battered and beaten when he hits building; no sex; very brief upper male nudity; alcohol; smoking; and, deception by Vatican in news reports and renegade priest.

 

GENRE:  Thriller

INTENDED AUDIENCE:  Teenagers and adults

 

Please address your comments to:

 

Michael Lynton, Chairman/CEO

Amy Pascal, Chairman - Motion Picture Group

Sony Pictures Entertainment

(Columbia Pictures/TriStar/Screen Gems/Provident/Triumph Films)

10202 West Washington Blvd.

Culver City, CA  90232-3195

Phone:  (310) 244-4000; Fax:  (310) 244-2626

Web Page:  www.spe.sony.com/

 

SUMMARY:  The movie version of ANGELS & DEMONS stars Tom Hanks as an agnostic professor who stops a dastardly plot to blow up the Vatican and destroy the Catholic Church from inside. The mystery in ANGELS & DEMONS is too convoluted and retains the book's revisionist history and slanderous tone of smearing Christianity through false information.

 

IN BRIEF:

 

The movie version of ANGELS & DEMONS opens with the cardinals convening to elect a new pope since the pope has just died. A papal police officer flies to Harvard to get Professor Robert Langdon because four cardinals have been kidnapped, with the intention of killing each one on the hour, and the Vatican has been threatened. Meanwhile, at the CERN Laboratory in Switzerland, someone has murdered a scientist, removed and used his eyeball to gain access to steal a canister of dangerous anti-matter. His science partner, Vittoria, arrives in Rome at the same time as Langdon to find the anti-matter before the Vatican is blown to smithereens one hour after the last cardinal is murdered.

 

Despite excellent special effects, the mystery in ANGELS & DEMONS is so convoluted that the actors often look like they're bystanders. In fact, Tom Hanks seems as if he's sleepwalking in his role. ANGELS & DEMONS avoids some of the most powerful emotional parts of the book as well as some of the anti-Christian, anti-Catholic speeches and adds some positive Christian content, but retains the book's revisionist history and prevailing smearing of Christianity through false information.