Angels and Demons (dir: Ron Howard)

Dan Brown has become a bestselling phenomenon based on his flair (one resists using the word talent to describe such a lazy and unkempt writer) for latching onto colorfully arcane and conspiratorial aspects of history and symbolism and creating fictional puzzles by recutting these historical curios to snap together into his own design. But the genius of his method is in the marketing: he builds his otherwise conventional mysteries of arcane knowledge around revered institutions that offer the possibility of scandal, or at least provocative revelation.

Tom Hanks and Ayelet Zurer: looking to the heavens for inspiration?

As in The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons (based on a book that was actually written before Da Vinci but reframed in the script to follow the movie) offers suggestions of dark secrets and ancient conflicts and a holy institution with unholy dimensions, and then systematically returns the proper order with all due respect to the Catholic Church. There’s no agenda here beyond creating a hook and suggesting controversy without actually delivering anything of substance.

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