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Clerical Error

People love a good conspiracy - particularly when it involves the Church. And Dan Brown is only too happy to provide. Mr. Brown, of course, is the author of "The Da Vinci Code", the gazillion-selling page-turner in which resourceful symbologist Robert Langdon tracks down a centuries-old cover-up involving nothing less than (spoiler alert!) the bloodline of Christ. "Da Vinci" was made into a serviceable, underwhelming film in 2006 by Ron Howard, starring Tom Hanks and a hair-do which sparked its own conspiracy theories. Never one to pass up a good cash cow, the filmmakers return to the Dan Brown trough with "Angels & Demons", in which Langdon returns to uncover yet another church-based mystery - this one involving the Vatican.

Though the book was written before "Da Vinci", the film version of "Angels" is ostensibly a sequel - there are brief nods to Langdon's previous "incident" with the Church, and a photo of Audrey Tautou's "Code" character adorns a bookcase. Other than that, "Angels" feels like a stand-alone episode of The Robert Langdon Show - kind of an ecclesiastical "Columbo"; knowledge of "Da Vinci" is preferred but not essential (we'll see how Mr. Brown's upcoming novel fits into the canon soon, I'm sure).

"Angels" opens with the death of the Pope. Before the College of Cardinals can elect a successor, four of the "preferiti" (the cream of the papal crop) are kidnapped by a group claiming to be the Illuminati - that super-secret organization favored by religio-mystery writers like Mr. Brown for ages (they even appeared in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"). For reasons that are given only a perfunctory nod, the Vatican turns to Langdon to solve the case.

Tom Hanks returns as Langdon - this time with a less controversial coif. The actor, of course, is likable and as watchable as ever. But Langdon emerges as no more of a character on screen than he does on the page. He's simply a walking Google search. He's able to enter an alcove and notice that all but one stone is rectangular. Skills like that enable him to succeed where the Vatican's Swiss Guard (their local police force) and the Italian authorities have failed (both organizations should be far more enraged by this film than the Catholic Church).

This time around, Langdon's female-in-tow is Vittoria Vetra, a physicist played by Ayelet Zurer. But Vittoria is not just any physicist. She works at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, creating glowing orbs of antimatter to discover what some call "The God Particle". Yes, it's this perfectly outlandish MacGuffin that sets the film's plot in motion. Vittoria also speaks fluent Latin and knows her fair share of church history (but, y'know, she's Italian; don't they all?).

That "Angels" was written prior to "Da Vinci" shows in the thinness of its plot. Langdon has five hours to track down four churches in Rome on the "Path of Illumination". As such, "Angels" is an average ticking-clock thriller that plays more like a Roman travelogue. What may have seemed exotic on the page just sits there on screen. Everything all falls into place as it must and, as in "Da Vinci", very little seems to be at stake. Perhaps Mr. Brown's stories have such a heightened sense of reality (is any conspiracy really centuries-old?) that it's hard to invest in them. The film even opens with some perfectly bombastic faux-Gregorian chanting to set the mood (it does). Worse still, Ewan McGregor is laughably miscast as the Camerlengo (the Pope's right-hand man) in a performance so earnest you almost expect him to rip off his form-fitting black cassock and break into song.

With director Ron Howard working from a script by David Koepp ("War of the Worlds") and Akiva Goldsman ("A Beautiful Mind"), "Angels" features a veritable Holy Trinity of blockbuster filmmakers. As a result, the film is never boring. It moves at a brisk clip and the scenery (pieces of which are clearly movie magic) is glorious. But in terms of generating a memorable thriller, "Angels" doesn't have a prayer.