Angels and Demons Movie Summary

Look out for the plot hole! Scene from Angels & Demons

For those not blessed with the gift of faith, it is sometimes hard to tell what will enrage the devout. It could be a stray oath, a passing reference to monkeys, or a silly, contrived Hollywood blockbuster that is actually trying to do them a favour. Take the recent case of the Vatican, which was so irked by the prospect of a sequel to The Da Vinci Code (the 2006 adaptation of the Dan Brown bestseller) that it banned the film-makers from shooting in Rome's churches and is still weighing up calls for a boycott. But what's the problem here, exactly? Angels and Demons comes to save Catholicism, not bury it. Its only sin is stupidity.

Tom Hanks returns as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, spouting great reams of expository dialogue as he scurries through secret passages and totters over rooftops. Brown's source novel was actually published before The Da Vinci Code, though the film is – crucially – set afterwards. Having infuriated the authorities on his previous adventure, Langdon is summoned back to make amends. Following the death of the old Pope, a clandestine, science-worshipping society – the Illuminati – have kidnapped four cardinals and planted a bomb in the Vatican City. That's bad. Happily the Illuminati have also posted a video that both outlines their plans in considerable detail and provides a number of clues for Langdon to pick over. That's good, because without these clues we would have no plot, and no excuse for our hero to go puffing laboriously from one church to another, racing against the clock to find those cardinals and defuse that bomb; talking, talking all the while.

Joining him on this quest is a foxy physicist (Ayelet Zurer) and a fresh-faced, progressive priest (Ewan McGregor) who may just turn out to be the Messiah. Elsewhere, Stellan Skarsgård plays the truculent head of the Swiss Guard, eyeing Langdon with a beady-eyed suspicion, while Armin Mueller-Stahl's silky cardinal steps up to inform us that "religion is flawed, but only because men is [sic] flawed". Fair enough, but time is fast running out. At 8pm the first victim winds up dead, and the runes and symbols turn more opaque. Langdon has until midnight to figure them out. After that the entire city will be razed by what is known in Latin as the Great Kablamo.

Angels and Demons is directed with a dogged, fawning efficiency by Ron Howard, who also oversaw The Da Vinci Code. On this occasion, the tone is less contentious, and possibly less cavalier as well. The film's argument seems to be that while there are a few bad apples in the Catholic church, the institution itself is well worth fighting for, and that science is hardly any better – particularly when it produces things that might blow up and kill people.

Justifying the Vatican's refusal to allow access to its holy sites, a spokesman explained that "normally we read the script, but this time it was not necessary. The name Dan Brown was enough". One hesitates to accuse the diocese of rushing to judgement, or of being too unresponsive, too shackled to old ways of thinking. But really. Dismiss Angels and Demons on its merits by all means. Howard's adaptation is unwieldy, elephantine and frequently foolish. But in its bumbling fashion it means no harm and even wants to help. What a conversion. Where the Dan Brown franchise once gave offence, it now mounts a glossy, multimillion dollar act of atonement.