This is beginning to feel like a poor man's "Indiana Jones." Less fun, more angry. This one is pretty brutal. But I guess you can't talk about the Vatican without mentioning the atrocities to keep the secrets intact.
That's the basis of this one. Which again, the politics of the Vatican are over my head. The one fact I did know was that they are their own city and laws. How's that work? Religion controls...laws? Probably. Also, they have so much high tech gear to protect low tech papyrus.
Tom Hanks, again, takes on Robert Langdon (is there a more Harvard name?), a symbol reading kook who is called on by the Vatican to decipher why the Illuminati would be returning to the church. The pope has died suddenly and the four preferiti who were up for being the new pope, have been kidnapped...oh and a bomb is going to detonate and kill everyone in the Vatican who came to see the announcement. So that's why the science chick is there Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer). By the way, wouldn't it just be easier to name her Ayelet? Like Jackie Chan just goes by "Jackie" in all his movies? Who would know (or care).
Okay, time's wasting, and every hour they're going to kill a preferiti. But not just kill, brand them and then kill them. A sort of revenge for when the church started murdering science folk for speaking...crazy science talk. So naturally there is a time clock (refer to my theory of having a time clock in your movies). And at the stroke of midnight (Vatican time, I guess), the anti-matter bomb goes off.
There is a ridiculousness to this plot that is beyond what even a book can explain. The spiraling plot of power struggles which entail a weapon of mass destruction is...comical. How about just chilling out for a while? The logic of crazy clergy isn't enough. Otherwise, I'd imagine this plot would happen on a daily basis. It was interesting to learn some trivia. Such as the Suiss guard is actually in charge of security for fear (paranoia) of assassination attempts to assume...Pope-dom? Doesn't mean these guys wouldn't have sticky fingers.
The other thing...this Langdon character is smart when he needs to be, and then a split second later realize he's been trumped. The so-called cat-n-mouse isn't really about him versus the villain. It's him versus his history. He cracks wise how little they've studied their own Vatican history, but seems to know just enough to get them...to the wrong area. But then figure out the right area where the bodies will be dumped. Really? He couldn't go that extra step, since he'd just been admonishing others for not understanding history. But whatever, it's a long fucking movie as it were. And it comes with three false endings. Blagh.
In the end, what do I feel like...hmm...not sure. It's not that I care more about the Vatican, nor was it THAT taught a mystery. The same could be found in "The Librarian" a very low budget "Indiana Jones"-like movie series.
Fun enough for a slow night.
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