At first I thought I hated Angels & Demons--and when I say "hated it," I mean that literally--because I read the book several years ago and really enjoyed the read. As much as a guy who rarely reads fiction can enjoy it, anyway. But I've often hated movies that were produced from books I enjoyed. The Firm comes to mind, (and damn it, I wished it hadn't), what with its alternate ending and all.
I digress. My complaint was about this Ron Howard flick.
After thinking about this movie for a few days, I've come to realize just why I hated it. It's because 15 minutes into the flick, Mrs. Film Geek announced: "The [title of a specific character] did it." Nothing more, just a simple proclamation as to who really killed the Pope.
And she was right.
She figured it out for the same reason I hated this movie: all the characters were obvious, and many were stereotypes! Like in any nameless Lifetime movie, the audience knows when a well known actor is hired to play a supporting role, that actor is gonna be the killer. It's understood he's gonna get a meatier role later in the flick, as a psycho sociopath, or a sociopathic psycho. Whatever the phrase is, it's a formula that keeps on being used, even though it's tired.
And the formula played out in this Hanks' movie. It played out big time. Angels & Demons wasn't great literature, but the book was far better than the movie.
Far better.
4 comments:
That was exactly how I felt about "The Village." (Was that the name of that crappy M. Knight Shalalalala movie?) About 2 minutes into it, my sister and I looked at each other and said, "This 'village' is sitting in the middle of a modern civilization and the town elders are the monsters." I'm still thinking of suing MKS for loss of enjoyment of life.
I sort of feel the same way about Titanic. I'm not really sure why.
LOL, primalscreamx. My mom said, "Why would I want to sit through Titanic for 2 1/2 hours when I already know how it ends?"
Hey, Atty: Strange thing is, I really liked The Village. Titanic, not so much.
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