Results

This is how Roman Catholics celebrate the Guy Fawkes Night in Rome. So ironic!

As it so often does, the thematic and dramatic possibilities of the Christian faith colliding with the prejudice and clarity of the secular world are thwarted by a wavery, fork-tongued reduction of one of the richest religious traditions in the world to the mere politics and dogma of its most visible institution, the Roman Catholic Church.  Hollywood’s longstanding equation of “Christian” with “Catholic” is affirmed in Angels & Demons, the latest adaptation of a Dan Brown novel, once again directed by that most sagacious of industry hacks, Ron Howard.  Unlike his less visually coherent brethren, Howard drapes his lens in a golden velvety sheen and edits with a semblence of attention to rhythm and location.  Let it never be said that he is an incompetent director.

Let it also never be said that he posseses the nuance and insight to probe such portentous subjects as religion, faith, and science without resorting to condescension or asinine bromides.  Angels & Demons wades skin-deep into the estuary of religion and science, daring to ask fundamental questions such as Who or What created the universe, how culpable the modern Church is for past atrocities, whether or not faith trumps scientific conclusions, and then has the temerity to fret that it may offend somebody.  The film can’t even adopt a principled agnosticism, too busy dropping hints that it might lean this way or that way, ultimately sacrificing whatever kernels of relevant debate on the altar of the opening weekend box office totals.  When Ewan MacGregor’s lamb-voiced priest asks Tom Hanks’s symbologist, Robert Langdon, if he believes in God, Langdon dissembles for two minutes when a simple “No” would have sufficed.  Perhaps Akiva Goldsman and David Koepp didn’t realize that it wouldn’t take a Harvard-trained linguist to decipher their bet-hedging dialogue.  Not one of the potentially tantalizing (and scandalizing) idea threads are followed up, nor are they introduced or dealt with in a manner remotely approximating thoughtful consideration.

Langdon arrives in Vatican City just as a conclave gets underway to elect a new Pope.  It seems that the four clergymen favored by the recently deceased Vicar of Christ have been kidnapped by the Illuminati and are scheduled to be executed in malignant and gruesome (though PG-13 friendly, in the magical way that only the MPAA could deem appropriate for youngsters) ways around the Eternal City before the secret society blows the Holy See to high heaven with a bit of anti-matter pilfered from the Large Hadron Collider.¹  Most of the movie resembles the Rome volume of The Conspiracy Theorist’s Guide To… series of travel books.²  As Langdon, his ravishing sidekick, Ayelet Zurer, and an assortment of bland Italian cops sally from basilica to archive to cathedral and back again, there is virtually no forward thematic, plot, or character movement at all, since none of the incrementally more grotesque set pieces materially affect the outcome of the narrative.  It’s a lot of signs and fury symbolizing nothing.³

The killer responsible for carrying out the series of theatrical executions does so with great alacrity and skill, until he’s cornered by Langdon and Zurer,⁴ at which point he explains that he could have killed them at any time, but spared them because he wasn’t paid to kill him, and that killing unarmed people violates his work ethic.  As any John Woo fan knows, hit men are often conscientiously bound to an unbreakable code of honor that permits them to brand, immolate, drown, suffocate, and stab innocent churchmen, but forbids them to eliminate key witnesses, especially when those witnesses are tenacious and resourceful enough to consistently track him down and/or warn the proper authorities of his whereabouts and the plans of their employers.

Let’s not meditate too long on the airtight motivations of an assassin.  Let us turn instead to the false dichotomy of science and religion.  Indeed, Angels & Demons, like The Da Vinci Code before it, presumes that the audience implicitly understands the prohibitive divide between these two fields of faith and study.  Howard and his writers wouldn’t dare to do anything so bold as to propose that there is an uncompromised common ground between the two, or articulate the ways in which they are mutually exclusive enterprises.  No, it assumes that the war between science and religion drives madmen to extreme measures (and that, whatever the case may be, it’s usually religion’s fault), and that the unknown is no place for a summer blockbuster to probe.  Stem cell research protestors clash in St. Peter’s Square inside the Vatican, and even though it’s never clear why exactly the devout Catholics awaiting the announcement of the conclave would have a problem with stem cell research protestors, the film also leaves unclear the motivations of these protestors and their opponents.  They are just another empty symbol of science and religion failing to come to terms, regardless of the fact that most pro-lifers (the RCC’s official position is anti-abortion) do not oppose stem cell research at all; only the destruction of human embryos.  Nor is a voice given to the proponents of embryonic stem cell research, who argue that the embryos (who will undoubtedly never be given the chance to live) could be used in experiments that could generate data that might lead to cures for a multitude of human diseases and ailments; the fact that many of these proponents consider themselves otherwise pro-life for various reasons, and have reconciled the position of the church and the position of their conscience, is left untouched.

It’s just one more spectacle in a film full of them, exploiting religious history and spurious conjecture regarding the mythos of secret societies for marginally dazzling shot compositions or button-pushing moments that the film attempts to defuse moments later with another half-witted platitude or the far more sensational appearance of a mutilated body.  In any case, all this simmering tension is meant to suggest that the future of Christendom is at a precipice and in need of a radical new direction.  It never occurs to the filmmakers that the “Catholic church on Earth” is not limited to the RCC, that Christianity may be too diverse to rise or fall on the coattails of a single institution.

When the Vatican refused the filmmakers access to its hallowed grounds, it ignited a mini-controversy.  The Church was too stodgy, too worried about such antiquated notions as blasphemy.  During interviews, the cast and crew repeatedly disclosed their mystification that the Catholic Church would take such exception to a silly piece of summer entertainment.  (As if the Church had such a short memory that it wouldn’t recall The Da Vinci Code asserting that the whole of Christianity was a complete hoax.  Now why would they be sore about something as trivial as that ol’ thing?)⁵  Perhaps the problem is that the filmmakers use issues that are rather important to millions of people — religious and nonreligious — as a platform for a bombastic treasure hunt that revels in the sadistic murder of priests.

Tom Hanks, the model of innocuous protagonism, is an inspiring hero because he’s just so goshdarn nice, not because his character is given any grounding.  He has nothing to do but hold the cinematographer’s attention.⁶  If it weren’t for the fact that Langdon carries us from tedious plot contrivance to tedious plot contrivance with such authoritative technobabble, you’d think he was utterly incapable of forming a firm opinion about anything.  He’s the kind of academic who claims to search for truth, yet backpedals from clearly articulating the implications of what he’s discovered.  For a scientist, truth-seeking is all about finding quantifiable data, conclusive evidence that unifies and supports a theory or debunks it… at least until better, more accurate data comes along.  By trade Robert Langdon is a skeptic, yet his implausible adventures require an incredible amount of audience credulity, that the audience (judging from ticket sales) seems dreadfully willing to grant.

Belittling the audience with its elementary school book report review of fudged facts and insulting it with its cursory pertinence, Angels & Demons unintentionally denigrates the ongoing discussion between religion, faith, and science, rather than furthering it.  While some viewers may walk out of the film feeling invigorated and uplifted by its “open” approach to these matters, they do so with seriously skewed notions of what’s at stake.  Intelligent viewers will feel vaguely numbed or bemused by the framing of substantial theses in a film with no theological or philosophical moorings, aside from a fetish for the trappings of the Catholic Church, which it simultaneously despises for being a Big Lie with little to no integrity, yet reveres for the sheer size and grandeur of its long history and photogenic old buildings.  If the film is remembered at all, it will be for rendering complicated ideas as inconsequential.  Even for people for whom reconciling faith and science is a non-issue, I can only imagine that Angels & Demons, a bloated, pretentious money-grab, serves as the latest in a long line of exhibits that the blockbuster machine, that infallible arbiter of public taste, is in dire need of a good, old-fashioned reformation.  Let us pray for such heresy.

*DBSM: Dan Brown Shitty Movie.  I felt a new term was needed to describe the sadomasochistic undertones of  voluntarily submitting oneself to yet another adaptation of Brown’s novels. This term may also be expanded to include adaptations of similarly bestselling thrillers and dramas that are brought to screen by industry hacks just professional enough to maintain a prestigious degree of mediocrity that may be confused with genuine quality.

Edited by Adam K.

_________________________________