All smiles and button downed shirts, the starts of Angels and Demons brought all the glitz and glamour of Hollywood to Rome to premier Dan Brown’s prequel to the hit film/book The Da Vinci Code.
Brown joined actors Tom Hanks and Ewan McGregor and director Ron Howard at Rome’s auditorium Monday to screen the film, which has already sparked controversy over Howard’s charge that the Vatican interfered with getting film permits to shoot scenes in Rome.
Angels & Demons features Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon of “The Da Vinci Code” fame, played by Hanks. In the film, the Vatican turns to Langdon after an ancient secret brotherhood called the Illuminati kidnap four cardinals considered front-runners to be the next pope, and threaten to kill one an hour and then explode a bomb at the Vatican.
The film is said to be faster paced and it wouldn’t be a big task to do this. The first was a turtles pace and what was supposed to be drawn out suspense felt like a drawn out yawn. But despite that, the film raked in some serious coin.
There has been a lot of contraversy around Howard’s assertment that the Vatican interfered with permits and other efforts with the film being shot on location in Rome. And now it seems they suited up and ran the red carpet out right in Rome for the Premier.
The Catholic League is always up in arms over any depection of the church, right or wrong, and this WORK OF FICTION can hardly change the public image of the organized religion but there are always going to be people who feel that Hollywood has a specific agenda to undermine the Catholic Faith.
Sorry. Hollywood is an equal opportunity offender.
Yeah, I’d really like to believe this is just a work of fiction, intended as such, and that neither Dan Brown, nor Hollywood, nor specifically the people involve in those movies intend to attack, defame, insult and annihilate the Catholic Church… the only problem is : that’s not true.
Dan Brown really believes his books reflect historical truth. If you are sane, you may find this statement ludicrous, as no sane people would give any credence to what he writes about. But that’s just the point : Dan Brown is insane. He really believes that the Catholic Church is an evil organisation bent on destroying humanity for 2000 years. He really believes that the Opus Dei, a very much public organisation of lay people (see website) is a secret organisation of killer monks assassinating free-thinkers and historians on a daily basis. He really believes that the Illuminati, a freemasonry of the poor that lasted about 15 years in the XVIIIth century, is a gigantic secret organization of scientists persecuted by the Church for 500 years. He really believes that the Church is fundamentally opposed to science and reason, overlooking the existence of such eminent Catholic philosophers / scientists as Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Pascal or, well, Pope Benedict XVI. He stated repeatedly that everything he writes about is the historical truth. He professed many times his hatred for the Catholic Church.
As for Hollywood, I don’t believe they have a secret agenda meant to destroy the Church. But I do believe that a huge majority of people in Hollywood hate the Church with all their heart and are quite happy to do anything to harm it. They think they follow the “Great Forces of History” and that the Church will disappear in a matter of decades.
And that’s just sad. For them.
I think the Catholic League’s response is quite moderate. They are not even calling for a boycott of this movie, just for a public statement by representatives of the studio and/or Dan Brown that this is a piece of fiction. Of course, they won’t even get this.
Finally, I can’t wait for Dan Brown’s and Hollywood’s next piece of “fiction” about the “mysteries” and “secrets” of Muhammad and the islamic religion.
(Apologies for any spelling mistake. This is not my native language)
Dan Brown does NOT believe that, and even if he did, his book and the movie based on it are still firmly classified as FICTION. And Brown certainly wont come out and make a statement about it because so long as there are religious zealots causing a stink about this obvious piece of fiction, you are giving him free publicity. Firms pay millions for this kind of attention to a film and the people ignorantly opposing a work of fiction for supposedly “offending their faith” are just promoting it even more. Jesus said people would talk smack about his people, and he said to endure… and this isn’t even directly against. Its speculative fiction. Its based on inaccuracies for the sake of making a story.
A huge majority of PEOPLE hate the church, and with good reason. Its filled with God’s flawed people and they give that flawed appearance of what the church represents.
And who cares of Dan Brown doesn’t do a book against other religions. He doesn’t have to.
This fear of fiction against your religion is YOUR problem, not Dan Brown and not Hollywood. If you cannot see the difference between fact and fiction then it is you who needs a reality check.
The Vatican has already stated the film is fun and light and holds no damage against the reputation of the church. Are you to oppose the vatican??
I couldn’t really get into this book, so much so that I couldn’t even finish it (and i always try to finish all my books). It just didn’t feel suspenseful and didn’t have me wanting to know what would happen next. gonna start reading it again to see if it is as bad as i remember but I doubt it. Am not really a fan of this series, it’s just boring and over-hyped to me.
I can’t wait for this release. Has anyone who has seen it read the book? I am keeping my fingers crossed it doesn’t ruin the Dan Brown version
no i havent read the book, however the film looks great
I saw Angels & Demons today at a press screening in Paris. It’s better than Da Vinci Code and not so much anti-Vatican. It’s a good thriller with a great photography, beautiful costumes and sets. And thank God, Prof Langdon/Tom Hanks changed his hairstyle !
Da Vinci Code wasn’t anti-Vatican, it was Anti-Fictional-Vatican. lol