ANGELS & DEMONS **½

Ron Howard directs this suspense/thriller which stars: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer, Stellan Skarsgard, Pierfrancesco Favino, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, and Armin Mueller-Stahl. Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, disturbing images and thematic material. Run time is two hours and eighteen minutes.

Religious expert Robert Langdon (Hanks) finds evidence of the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati - the most powerful underground organization in history -who pose a deadly threat to the existence of the secret organization's most despised enemy: the Catholic Church. With the help of a young scientist (Zurer) and the Vatican police (Skarsgard and Favino) and hampered by infighting between a Cardinal (Mueller-Stahl) and the Pope's chief of staff (McGregor) he must solve a series of murders and prevent the destruction of the Vatican City.

I read The DaVinci Code, the second of these two novels, and very much enjoyed the movie version, although I did enjoy the book more. I haven't read Angels And Demons and I understand there are several changes between it and the screenplay for this movie. The production values are very good this time around and the cast is good, featuring a mix of well known faces and competent but unknown ones. The pacing is fast which keeps things interesting throughout. It doesn't feel like a 2½ hour movie. That being said, when it was all over, I was disappointed in the story itself. It's basically just a detective story and a rather convoluted one at that. If you want to see it, however, you need to do so in a large theatre with very good sound. This film will loose most of its impact on a TV screen.