The thing with Angels & Demons is that for every pro you can think of, there are atleast two cons. But who has time to think about anything other than the plot when it's so tightly wrapped and well presented? That's the saving grace of the movie - that it moves and you've to move with it, so you don't really think about critiquing it till well after, by which time the director can (well-deservedly) go chuckling all the way to the bank.
- I think the movie does a fair job approportionating science and the church their due rights, not pitting one against the other. When I think of the immaturity that a lot of Sunny Deol anti-Pak movies are, I thank God we didn't make movies on, say, Ayodhya and Demons.
- We know it's the 21st century and you have access to kickass editing softwares, there's no need to whoosh-whoosh blue light at us everytime antimatter's mentioned. You may just as well throw in a Bollywood dance number if you're going to dumb things down that much.
- It's so hard to concentrate on the movie if you've read the book because every now and then, a voice in your head goes, 'Whaaaa? What the fuck?' Let's just say the movie's VERY loosely based on the book. I'm not sure why that even rankles, it's not like Dan Brown's ever really written a book that deserves you to stand up for it's rights, but still.
- There's ample eye-candy in this movie, even without the churches. The villain, not the Camerlengo, but the assassin, was beeeeyond hot. It made you forgive all his sins and he more than made up for the visual za za zsu that Tom Hanks was most definitely not.
- The Camerlengo has more chemistry with a dead pope than Tom Hanks does with Ayelet Zurer - I understand they've a murderer to catch and tight one-hour timelines all night, but they make holding hands seem like a deathbed ceremony at the funeral of a dead fish.
- The Camerlengo's speeches, reminiscent of Hitler at his finest, make him a convincing hero... but surprisingly, he's a disappointment in his 'mad' avatar. He makes his confession towards the end as though he's only saying the words because they were on the script and he's being framed. Kinda ruins the effect. They could have atleast dubbed for God's sake.
- The Preferiti were heart-breakingly convincing, you really really really didn't want them to die even if that meant you had to deal with Tom Hanks being alive to rescue them.
- Tom Hanks' numerous neck folds make him look like a cow let loose in the Vatican. Add the crow's feet by his eyes and the (not so) subtle graying sparse hair on his head and you almost feel like he's one of the Preferiti rather than the one rescuing them.
- While I appreciate the irony of the media getting nothing right, it seemed like such a pity that EVEN if you're the Preferiti you don't get a decent half-second of mourning, not even a semi-chord or a prayer in the distance, before Hanks and the Israeli woman say 'Yeah, okay, bye!' and start running again.
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