Angels & Demons (Ron Howard, 2009)

For both of his Dan Brown adaptations, the best choice director Ron Howard made was to populate the cast with thoroughly reliable actors. In The Da Vinci Code, he had Sir Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, Alfred Molina, Paul Bettany, and our most reliable actor working today, Mr. Tom Hanks as protagonist Robert Langdon. For this summer's Angels & Demons, we get Ewan McGregor, ultimate Swedish badass Stellan Skarsgård, and Armin Mueller-Stahl (so great in Eastern Promises).

But here's the problem: there's so much goddamned running around Vatican City (or in the case of the first one, Paris, London, etc.) that not one of them is given the chance to do more than solid, competent work, than to be totally and unremarkably reliable. No one gets a chance to shine. I will say that the film is a step-up from Da Vinci, mostly because it's not nearly as up-its-own-ass as that film was. I'm not sure if that should be attributed to the source material (I never read the books) or to the script by blockbuster go-to guys David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman, but Howard seems to have tonded down the twists/symbol explanations/kookiness which came along at such a furious clip in the first film. However, there's still not much room for the characters to breathe, and Demons hurts because of that.

What the first movie did right, this one does better. Howard can craft a suspenseful film, I'll give him that. Some of the action set pieces are pretty damn captivating, and when it goes for laughs, it usually gets them. As for what Da Vinci did wrong, well, that stays about the same. Ayelet Zurer (Eric Bana's wife in Munich; lovely) is a perfectly suitable surrogate for Audrey Tautou's character in the first film (and mercifully, she's not related to Jesus), but likewise isn't given very much to do besides sprint alongside Hanks and offer up information when it's helpful in moving the script forward. Speaking of the script, too much exposition comes in the form of seemingly throw away bits of dialogue. It's the nature of the beast, I guess, the beast here being silly action films with outlandish plots about religious intrigue (though, not so outlandish as to piss off your average moviegoer and not be a little, ok, a lot predictable).

But, you know, it's not a bad film. It's an enjoyable bit of popcorn escapism. I just wish that with the talent both onscreen and behind the camera, it would have been of a little more consequence. [C+]