Category: Movies
Angels & Demons is a good but flawed thriller that revolves around the quest of Robert Langdon a Harvard University professor to unravel a plot to annihilate Vatican City by the secret society called the Illuminati using antimatter stolen from CERN.
I think that this is a very good adaptation of Dan Brown’s book and is my opinion an improvement over the book. The film is an action packed and pacey thriller whose main flaw I feel are due to the source material. As a sequel it is also an improvement over the movie of The Da Vinci Code as there is significantly less standing about and spieling off of expository bits of dialogue. Also where the end of The Da Vinci Code seemed to fizzle out to nothing Angels & Demons has a very explosive finale.
The one flaw with the pacing of the film is that the structure of the plot with rigid deadlines to be met means that variations in pacing become noticeable where one hour between events passes quickly the next hour can pass much slower.
There have been a a number of changes made in the adaptation which tighten up the story. There is much less set at CERN although it looks like that they really did film the LHC there. the character of the Camerlengo has been altered slightly and is here portrayed as a Northern Irish priest by Ewan McGregor. The character of the Hassassin has been changed to become more of a mercenary than a zealot.
The acting is excellent with McGregor and Mueller Stahl as stand outs amongst the cast. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Robert Langdon and is more believable as an academic turned reluctant action hero than Nic Cage in the similar National Treasure.
This is a far less controversial film than some Catholic organisations might have you believe, the premise of the story is this supposed battle between science and religion but this is merely misdirection. The Vatican and the Catholic church come out of this relatively unscathed, they were guilty of the persecution of scientists in the past most notably Galileo but they haver admitted their mistakes in that regard already.
To conclude this is a good thriller and is a fun ride that is best enjoyed with your brain turned off.
Angels & Demons is a good but flawed thriller that revolves around the quest of Robert Langdon a Harvard University professor to unravel a plot to annihilate Vatican City by the secret society called the Illuminati using antimatter stolen from CERN.
I think that this is a very good adaptation of Dan Brown’s book and is my opinion an improvement over the book. The film is an action packed and pacey thriller whose main flaw I feel are due to the source material. As a sequel it is also an improvement over the movie of The Da Vinci Code as there is significantly less standing about and spieling off of expository bits of dialogue. Also where the end of The Da Vinci Code seemed to fizzle out to nothing Angels & Demons has a very explosive finale.
The one flaw with the pacing of the film is that the structure of the plot with rigid deadlines to be met means that variations in pacing become noticeable where one hour between events passes quickly the next hour can pass much slower.
There have been a a number of changes made in the adaptation which tighten up the story. There is much less set at CERN although it looks like that they really did film the LHC there. the character of the Camerlengo has been altered slightly and is here portrayed as a Northern Irish priest by Ewan McGregor. The character of the Hassassin has been changed to become more of a mercenary than a zealot.
The acting is excellent with McGregor and Mueller Stahl as stand outs amongst the cast. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Robert Langdon and is more believable as an academic turned reluctant action hero than Nic Cage in the similar National Treasure.
This is a far less controversial film than some Catholic organisations might have you believe, the premise of the story is this supposed battle between science and religion but this is merely misdirection. The Vatican and the Catholic church come out of this relatively unscathed, they were guilty of the persecution of scientists in the past most notably Galileo but they haver admitted their mistakes in that regard already.
To conclude this is a good thriller and is a fun ride that is best enjoyed with your brain turned off.
A tie with Greystoke as best adaptation of Tarzan yet although the two films are at the opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. Where Greystoke is a bleak, tragic tale of loss Disney’s Tarzan is an uplifting fun romantic adventure.
Of course as with any Tarzan story there has to be the dark events of his parent’s deaths, but it is handled extremely well here it happens off-screen and in a change to the book is carried out by Sabor the Leopard.
The voice acting is superb. Glenn close excels as Kala, Tarzan’s ape mother. Minnie Driver is an intelligent and feisty Jane Porter and Brian Blessed lends his wonderful baritone to the human villain of the piece Clayton.
The animation is brilliant and the backgrounds stunningly beautiful. There will probably be no other adaptation that will be able to portray how at ease Tarzan is at moving through the tree tops of the jungle.
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes 
This 1983 film takes a radically different approach to most previous movies of the legendary character of Tarzan and in many ways is far closer to the original story Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Here we see an intelligent man who despite being away from human contact from infancy is able to as a grown man learn two languages and speak if with a light French accent English eloquently. The story here is not of a rollicking jungle-set adventure but instead focuses on his growing up amongst the apes and then as an adult his struggle to adjust to his “rightful place” amongst British high society as a Greystoke.
This is ultimately a tragic telling of the Tarzan story as John Clayton realises that he can never truly be at home in either environment.
Although he is able to pass within society as a civilized individual, he prefers to “strip off the thin veneer of civilization,” as Burroughs puts it.
Shown as part of the VW Superior Sequels season.