Book vs. Movie: Angels & Demons
By Russ Bickerstaff
May 18, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
And in this corner: the Movie. A 112-year-old kid born in France to a guy named Lumiere and raised primarily in Hollywood by his uncle Charlie "the Tramp" Chaplin. This young upstart has quickly made a huge impact on society, rapidly becoming the most financially lucrative form of storytelling in the modern world.
Both square off in the ring again as Box Office Prophets presents another round of Book vs. Film.
Angels & Demons
In 2003, failed pop singer Dan Brown's fourth novel hit the top of the New York Times Best Seller list. One year later, Brown's earlier books became best sellers as well. His fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, is generally recognized as one of the most popular books to come out of the current decade. In 2003, Sony Pictures acquired the film rights to the novel along with the rights to Angels & Demons - a similar book featuring the same central character. The film rights to Angels & Demons would have been mere trivia had the film adaptation of The Da Vinci Code not been the huge success it's become. Having grossed well over $750 million worldwide, The Da Vinci Code is one of the top 30 highest grossing films of all time. Based on the novel that came before it, The Da Vinci Code's sequel opened over the weekend, looking to add to that success.
The Book
Angels & Demons is a suspense thriller focusing on the exploits of Harvard Symbology Professor Robert Langdon. Langdon is contacted to investigate a murder and quickly finds himself caught up in a conspiracy against the Catholic church evidently instigated by the mysterious Bavarian Illuminati.
Though firmly planted in a contemporary millennial world complete with Madonna, a Mickey Mouse watch, Steve Jackson Games and numerous other details specific to the world in which we live, Brown makes a concerted effort early on to let the reader know that his novel is a work of fiction. In addition to the usual disclaimer that is found in the front of most works of fiction, Brown includes an Author's Note that identifies the few bits of the novel that are factual - evidently implying that the rest of the novel is a blurring of our world into a darker, more suspenseful fictitious world.
Brown's Angels & Demons exists in a strange place vaguely out of phase with our own - one where Symbology is a respected academic discipline taught at Harvard rather than a fuzzy word with a lot of different meanings. It's a world where antimatter is a viable and dangerous source of nearly limitless energy rather than an impractical scientific curiosity. It's a world where a portable camera is capable of sending a signal strong enough to penetrate from deep underground, yet somehow still manage to be completely untraceable by trained technicians without shutting down huge power grids. It's a world where cell phones have dial tones. It's a world where academics seem to have a deep need to speak in simple, expository language that would be handy to advancing a plot without getting bogged down in all those pesky little details that make academic pursuits so interesting in the first place. Indeed, it's a world that seems to be harrowingly bent around a plot with such force as to seem like a very, very uncomfortable place to swim around in for 480 pages. As a result, the characters don't come across as being people so much as plot elements. This is particularly disconcerting as it relates to the main characters, whose lack of depth make it very difficult to care about them.
For all of its many limitations, Angels & Demons is actually a well-paced murder/suspense story. The murder that Harvard Symbologist Robert Langdon is asked to investigate in the CERN compound in Europe turns out to have connections to a series of murders and the possible terrorist use of antimatter in Vatican City. The pacing of the novel quite competently moves Langdon from Harvard to CERN to Italy without slowing the rush of events at all. This is important as the novel's pacing and its status as a best seller are really its only good qualities. Nearly everything else is flawed in some way.
But perhaps I'm being disingenuous. It takes considerably more than good pacing to make a best seller. With Stephen King, there's a love of storytelling that speaks through the narrative. With Tom Clancy, there's an alarming level of technical knowledge that permeates the text. With John Grisham, there's an understanding of legal issues that animates everything. With Brown... there's an understanding of the public's fascination with basic subjects. With Angels & Demons, Brown has framed a story featuring a conflict between science and religion that everyone seems to be interested in. In a way, it doesn't really matter that very few of Brown's details about science and religion are factual. What he's done here is successfully frame a story around the conflict that has enough details to seem real to people who wouldn't otherwise be interested in reading nonfiction texts on the subjects. What's savvy about Brown's approach to this is there really are a lot of people with a passing interest in the conflict between science and religion who haven't read the one or two books on the subject that would've made Angels & Demons silly at best and at worst, boring. That's okay; Brown's not terribly interested in this stuff either. Judging from the superficial level of the factual details and the gross amount of errors present in all of the deeper stuff, the total amount of research he did in the background of the novel probably could've taken little more than a couple of afternoons on the Internet. Brown has succeeded in writing a wildly popular novel that is every bit as generally disinterested in the deeper aspects of its subject matter as the people who have made it successful.
The Movie
As the film begins, we see a contrast between the Vatican dealing with the death of a pope and scientists at CERN producing a large amount of anti-matter. It's a nice start that has a dramatic impact lacked in a lot of Brown's early mucking about in the beginning of the novel. Rather than having Langdon contacted by CERN at all, he's contacted by the Vatican, throwing him right into the heart of the conspiracy, which is an excellent idea on the part of screenwriters David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman. Much of what Brown did at CERN was exhibit a gross misunderstanding of the culture of research scientists, turning the whole atmosphere into the guarded secrecy of a pulp sci-fi mad scientist rather than the more open atmosphere of a respected research facility.
Having pragmatically avoided Brown's CERN cheesiness, the film dives right into Vatican City, as Langdon has been sent there to investigate the kidnapping of a group of cardinals who have been voted most likely to become the next pope. Why Langdon? Evidently there's symbology here that deals with the secret society known as the Illuminati, which Langdon's written a book about.
Tom Hanks return to the role of Robert Langdon. Hanks looks less ridiculous here than he did as Langdon in the previous film,, but he isn't given a whole lot to do in the center of the film and very little of that distinctive Hanks-y personality shows through. This is important - he's the film's main character and he's given little to do. The source material has given the screenwriters very little to work with in the way of interesting characters and the actors muddle along as best as possible. Some actors do a better job of conjuring clever moments than others: Ewan McGregor has a very appealing moment's oration near the end of the film in the role of a Camerlengo and venerable German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl makes a few memorable impressions as a cardinal, but this really isn't a dramatic film in spite of its potential. An attractive, mysterious Israeli actress plays an attractive, mysterious Italian scientist, but like so much of the rest of the film, she looks good without being allowed to have much impact. Of particular note with respect to the eye candy factor is the architecture. An 18th century Italian palace stand in for the interior of the Vatican, a 17th century Italian library stands in for the Vatican Library and a soundstage stood in for St. Peter's Basilica. The attention to detail on the St. Peter's set was phenomenal. Production designer Allan Cameron gives a remarkable feel for the immensity of the place. But aside from looking very regal, it isn't given much to do here either.
For all its difficulties, the film really excels at amplifying Brown's pacing. From the opening credits on, the film is hell bent on getting from point A to Point B and all the little points in between in just over two hours. All of Brown's pointless little factoids vaporize in a rush of events that is only slightly slower than the traditional summer action film. This has as much to do with the scoring as it does any other aspect of production - Hans Zimmer's score seems to be pushing things forward even in moments that would otherwise seem poignant and reflective. It may not have that much of an impact by the time it reaches the closing credits, but the Angels & Demons makes getting there reasonably fun.
The Verdict
In spite of its apparent desire to be something deeper, at its heart, the Angels & Demons story is an suspense thriller with just enough substance to keep it from seeming entirely pointless. Dan Brown's novel spends far too much time trying to justify itself intellectually to keep the kind of pace necessary for a really effective suspense thriller. While the film is similarly bogged-down in intellectual pretensions, the movie spends a lot less time talking and a lot more time moving. As a result, the film is far more effective at delivering on the kind of action and suspense that makes the story palatable. The screenwriters even improved on Brown's ponderous dialogue, making it sharper and more natural - so even the tedious exposition that Brown trudges his characters through speeds by pretty quickly. It may not be a great film, but it knows what it's doing a lot better than the book.