A Disappointing Tom Hanks Sequel Is Now Streaming On Netflix
The Tom Hanks movie Angels & Demons is now on Netflix.
This article is more than 2 years old
Angels & Demons, the sequel to The Da Vinci Code starring Tom Hanks, is now streaming on Netflix, and movie-watchers feel indifferent about it. Though Tom Hanks is a household name and probably one of the best actors Hollywood has ever seen, not all of his films are super stellar. In fact, Tom Hanks himself has said he’s only made four good movies in his entire career, and The Da Vinci Code series is not among them.
Angels & Demons is the film adaptation of Dan Brown’s book of the same title. The movie is a sequel to The Da Vinci Code film, though the Angels & Demons book is actually a prequel in the book series.
The film follows Robert Langdon (played by Hanks), a Harvard symbologist who discovers the rise of the Illuminati and flies to Rome to warn the Vatican. He teams up with an Italian scientist, and, like in the first film, he must solve a series of cryptic and symbolic clues to prevent a deadly plot against the Catholic Church.
Tom Hanks stars in both films, and the trilogy’s finale, Inferno. In Angels & Demons, Hanks is joined by Ayelet Zurer, who plays the Italian scientist, and Ewan McGregor, who plays Camerlengo Patrick McKenna, the film’s main antagonist. The film was directed by Ron Howard and produced by Howard, John Calley, and Brian Grazer.
Originally, the role of Camerlengo was offered to Leonardo DiCaprio by Tom Hanks himself, but DiCaprio turned down the role. Despite not being the original actor thought of for the role, McGregor ended up portraying Camerlengo perfectly. In fact, during the sequence where Camerlengo tells the Cardinals about the Illuminati, Howard wanted to break the scene up into several segments to help McGregor with his lines. However, McGregor insisted he could do it in one take, so Howard let him try. The take was so good that no other takes were shot.
While it’s generally acknowledged that Angels & Demons is a better movie overall than its prequel, The Da Vinci Code, the film was not a box-office smash. While The Da Vinci Code grossed $758.2 million, its sequel only made $485.9 million, with Inferno coming in third at $220 million. While no film in the trilogy was a box-office flop, none of them made a lasting impression on its audience.
As far as Tom Hanks movies go, Angels & Demons is one of the most take-it-or-leave-it films in his career. While the film did make Howard and his production team some money, critics considered the movie to be a total intellectual flop, claiming that the story is an implausible, fast-paced thrill ride. In other words, a popcorn movie without any depth and a terrible musical score.
There is no argument that the film is filled with plenty of plot holes. For instance, how can a Catholic symbologist and Harvard professor who has devoted his life to learning about all things Catholocism never learn a single word of Italian? Or, why does the antagonist insist on playing a cat-and-mouse game with Tom Hanks’ character instead of getting straight to his plan for revenge?
To be fair, the production team did their part to make the film as realistic as possible, maybe not as far as the script was concerned, but at least for the movie sets. Because they realized that they most likely wouldn’t be able to film inside Vatican City, crew members extensively photographed the city so they could recreate realistic sets for the film.
Despite its flaws, Angels & Demons is still considered a better film than The Da Vinci Code, which has been accused of being a blur of a film without any real substance.
Overall, when Angels & Demons was released in theaters in 2009, audiences felt like the film took viewers on a confusing scavenger hunt that made less and less sense with every twist the plot unfolded. This is why people feel indifferent about this disappointing Tom Hanks sequel to The Da Vinci Code that is now streaming on Netflix. It’s a great movie to watch if you’re bored, but if you’re looking for something intellectual that will make you think, you might want to scroll past this one.
