Much like GB Shaw, I, too, often enjoy quoting myself. As I once said, whenever I run out of things to write about, and I apparently last ran into them 6 months ago, the easiest thing to do would be to write an um “opinion piece” on some movie Iv watched. So, in keeping with the title of this post, let me start with Angels and Demons.
When I read Dan Brown’s books I remember wondering why no one had ever explained to this man the virtues of writing short sentences. I was also curious if everyone in Dan Brown’s surroundings always found the need to say out loud every damn thing they thought. And also how Robert Langdon’s detective skills were almost superior to those of the Hardy Boys’. He kept landing himself in one “impossible-to-escape-from” situation or another, and then suddenly, the case magically unravelled itself. And quite clearly, the makers of the movie have been labouring under the delusion that this is why the books became bestsellers and they have adopted all these salient elements in the movie.
I have to concede one thing though. Angels and Demons, while comprising of a lot of running, pointing and explaining, was a pleasant change from Da Vinci Code, which was mostly just pointing and explaining. Tom Hanks, while taking “thinking out loud” to a whole new level, has broken his own record for Maximum Number of History Lessons Delivered While Escaping From Mad Assassins While Accompanied By Hot Girls Who Are There For No Particular Reason Because Dan Brown Already Had Movie Rights In Mind While Writing The Book. There was one part of the movie I was waiting to see, after reading that section of the book with a “wtf? WTF?! WTF!!!” expression on my face, and it definitely didn’t disappoint.
