MYST Post #2: Angels and Demons

Vatican City is one of the most renown and historical cities in the world located within Rome, Italy. It is home to some of the world's most spectacular monuments and buildings that represent art, religion, and history. And of course, it is also the capital of the Catholic faith where the pope himself lives. It truly is a remarkable and symbolic city and from what I also hear, it's quite a popular tourist site as well. However, what if there was more to the Vatican than the world knew? What if there are hidden secrets and a lost history that the Vatican had tried to lock away for reasons unknown? Well, if you're just as curious as I was, then Angels and Demons will show you the famous city like you've never experienced before.

Novel Cover

The above clip is the official trailer. Based on the Dan Brown book with the same name, Angels and Demons takes the very eternal dispute between science and religion to a whole new level. I've read the book and watched the movie and I've got to say they were both very entertaining despite how different they surprisingly were. This 2009 film directed by Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13) follows the symbology/history professor, Robert Langdon, in his dangerous journey to help stop a devastating terrorist plot against the Vatican during the Papal Conclave or the electing of the new pope. In a race against time, Langdon, played by Tom Hanks (Forest Gump), must rediscover a secret ancient trail within the city to fight terror with knowledge and stop one of the world's worst cataclysms ever. The movie starts out with a group of nuclear researchers creating large amounts of anti-matter. Meanwhile the Vatican mourns over the sudden death of the pope and prepare for Conclave. Soon the leading nuclear researcher is murdered and a container of the antimatter is stolen threatening to cause a near-nuclear explosion. The Vatican eventually finds that an ancient brotherhood known as the Illuminati have stolen the anti-matter and kidnapped the 4 likely canditates of the next pope planning to kill them one by one and destroy the city with the anti-matter.

Illuminati (Ambigram)

Vatican City (St. Peters Square)

What's really interesting about this movie is its ability to keep a constant mood of suspense. It's one of those movies that keep you on the edge of your seat until you can settle down with a conclusion. Ron Howard did an exceptional job with this style of suspense and I'm not surprised. Looking back at his movie Apollo 13, it nearly kept the adrenaline going of every audience member throughout the movie, and this piece was not so different. The way the story uses a countdown to a final climax made it very easy for Howard to take advantage of in terms of creating a suspenseful and mysterious setting.

Professor Langdon

Looking at the cast, I was actually rather pleased with the fact that Tom Hanks played the part of the professor. Something about him gave off a kind of intellectual vibe from the movie and the way he is able act made him a good part as a knowledgeable professor. He can play a serious role very which is exemplified in his characters as Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan and as Forest in Forest Gump. Plus again with suspense style, you can tell he is able to act accordingly too as shown also in Apollo  13. Ewan McGregor is also a star in the film playing Camerlengo McKenna, the temporary head of the Vatican during Conclave. He plays his part rather well too, although, he as an actor has never really made a large impression on me. To me, he seems more like a mediocre gets-the-job-done kind of actor where you appreciate his character but don't really appraise his skills as much as he probably deserves. I felt that way about him in his role as Obi-wan in the Star Wars series and Grimes in Black Hawk Down. Having said that, however, he did show some unique expressions and character in this particular movie especially near the end which I rather enjoyed.

Camerlengo McKenna

The movie itself, like I mentioned before, focuses mostly on suspense. So in terms of cinematic elements, the camera work was literally very shaky. The way the plot moved was very fast-paced and only really slowed down when there was serious and important dialogue between characters. One thing very spectacular about this film was its use of extreme long-shots to display much of the beautiful Vatican City with its incredible architectural buildings and churches and plazas. The movie also showed great use of long shots and close up shots to focus on specific objects like statues, art, and the character's expressions in certain situations. These shots were key in the plot because as the audience, we were following the viewpoint of Robert Langdon and how he sees his clues and solves his puzzles. The movie was rather dark both literally and figuratively so the lighting mostly involved low-key lighting on the characters and objects especially in church scenes where the aura is rather eerie and mysterious with a hint of suspense.

One scene I'd like to focus on is the scene where Professor Langdon and Vittoria, the nuclear researcher, are desperately looking for the Illuminati terrorist in St. Peters Square. They know the Illuminati will kill the next pope candidate in the Square according to the secret ancient trail they were following. However, because of the situation with the deceased pope and the Papal Conclave, the Square is filled with massive amounts of people making it very difficult to locate the killer or the candidate. Soon, the scene shows a young tourist girl drop her doll on a pool of blood from the wounded Cardinal. Her screams bring attention to Langdon and the police where they discover the injured Cardinal dying from a punctured lung and the ambigram "Air" branded on his chest. After a failed CPR attempt to save him, he dies on the floor of the Square. This scene is a very good representation of the movie as a whole because it involves a lot of suspense and mystery. In context, the audience would be on the edge of the seat looking just as hard for the candidate as Langdon only wishing they could save him in time. The scene shows lots of long shots showing the masses of people and quickly switching with close-up shots of Langdon and Vittoria to show their desperate expressions of finding the killer. This is a unique technique where it'll show setting and character back and forth to make the audience see in the characters' views. The way the scene was edited was very fast-paced making us seem like we are struggling to find the killer too. This adds much suspense as does the music in the background which gradually gets more intense until the climax of the scene where we find the dying Cardinal. Along with the dark lighting, quick shot changes, and use of discontinuity editing, we are forced into a mood of suspense and mystery which is exactly what the scene and movie intended to do.
Click Here for a link to the scene (It's slightly bloody though so be warned).

Ambigram example

What I loved about this movie was that it was entertaining and interesting all throughout the film. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about history, appreciating art and architecture, and following a fantastic story. The book had the same effect but the movie definitely gave it that visual aspect that I love. The ending was phenomenal as well although it was somewhat strange and unreasonable, but I won't give away anything here. But I'll just say it's one of those movies that left a pretty impressionable finale for the audience. The problems I kind of had with this movie was that it was pretty unnecessarily gory and disturbing at times and it can get very confusing very quickly if you don't pay attention. At some parts I had to rewind to try and understand the dialogue exchanges between the characters and sometimes they would mumble, be quiet, or talk really fast so it sometimes got annoying. The movie does a good job of using just the right amount of comedic relief and also uses very neat special effects to make that action genre of film. Plus, just as a fun detail, I really loved the whole ambigram concept the plot used where a word design is the same thing upside down and right side up. Definitely one of the most interesting things about the story. Anyways, overall, I really enjoyed it and it is definitely a great film for first-time viewers. For this movie, I'd have to give it a solid 8/10.