"Angels and Demons" has a running time of 2 hours
and 20 minutes but seems a little shorter than that. What is it about the
Catholic church and violence? And the Catholic church and opulence? The
predominant color among the church men in the Vatican and if it is suppose to
represent blood there certainly is a lot of it in this movie.

More than one person is 'burned at the stake' while
another is blown up in a car and let's not forget the eye torn out of a face and
left on the floor. Blood, violence and torture are just in a day's work along
with branding people, an attempted drowning and a few chases in and out of
cars.

"Angels and Demons" is about 4 kidnapped priests
each going to be killed an hour apart. It is also about electing a new Pope and
that old argument of science versus religion as if they can't/won't coexist. Oh,
and let's not forget the Illuminati, a secret society from a couple of hundreds
years ago now going for revenge.

There is a lot going on in this movie which takes
very few breaks to breath and the director, Ron Howard, doesn't want the
audience to do that as they might start thinking and it would all fall apart but
as an adventure thriller it works. The director of photography keeps the action
continuous while the editor emphasizes the action. And the set and costume
designers could teach Valentino about excess.

As far as the acting goes there really isn't much to
talk about. Hanks, of course, is efficient but the role is basically a two note
one. Ayelet Zurer is an Israel actress who appears to be a lot taller than Hanks
ans, also, only has toi have two expressions.

Ewan McGregor,  Stellan Skarsgard, Armin
Mueller-Stahl and Pierfrancesco Favino all play interesting characters with only
Ewan and Armin having enough screen time to make impressions.

I was really jolted at the end by a bit of talk that
is almost a direct steal from "Tea & Sympathy". Either the writer of the
film feels the audience will be too young to remember the play or movie or will
be too old to remember the play or movie!!! LOL

All in all it is an action thriller with a lot of
blood, violence and chases but very little suspense. It will, no doubt, be the
highest grossing film of the weekend, if not of the year, so far.