Uncovering Secret Sects in Vatican City

By Lisa Worsham
May 28, 2009 Issue

In Ron Howard’s Angels & Demons, the recently deceased Pope’s right hand man (Ewan McGregor as the Camerlengo) asks Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) if he believes in God. Langdon replies that his head and his heart disagree. That’s a fairly accurate description of how you feel after watching this movie. Your heart wants Howard and his old pal from Splash and Apollo 13 to wow you, but your aching head tells you that you shouldn’t have to work so hard to be entertained.

This is the second Howard-directed movie based on a Dan Brown novel. The first, The DaVinci Code, was loudly denounced by the Catholic Church for its heresy. Perhaps since that designation only seemed to increase its cult status and its box office receipts, A&D was not so vociferously condemned. In fact, the Vatican newspaper gave it a favorable review, calling it “harmless entertainment” that did not affect “the genius and mystery of Christianity.” Ah, if only it managed to effectively and efficiently translate Brown’s engrossing plot to the screen. The script uses conversations between the characters to reveal the complicated plot lines that, along with the powerful (overpowering?) Hans Zimmer score, substitute for action. There hasn’t been this much dialogue in a movie since the invention of talkies.

In Angels & Demons, a progressive pope has just died when an ancient secret sect of scientists, the Illuminati, resurfaces to take revenge for the way the Church treated the brotherhood in the days of Galileo. They take credit for kidnapping four Cardinals (the Preferitti) who are the ones most likely to be the next Holy Father, threatening to kill one an hour at locations in Rome with symbolic meaning to the members of their society.

The Illuminati, being ancient and all, is a group well known to Langdon (who holds a degree in the fictional academic discipline of Symbology). That’s why, even though he is a nemesis of the Catholic Church, Langdon is summoned to Rome. Complicating matters further (as if) is a time bomb hidden somewhere in Vatican City that is powered by anti-matter stolen from CERN in Geneva in the opening scene of A&D. The Illuminati plan to detonate it at midnight after all the Preferitti are dead, effectively destroying the Church or at least the Church leadership since they are all gathered at the Vatican to name a new Pope.

Landon arrives at the Vatican at the same time as CERN Researcher Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer) the female character who accompanies him as he runs around Rome at breakneck speed searching for clues to the location of this so-called “God Bomb.” Every hour they manage to arrive just in time to witness the gory death of yet another Cardinal.

There are plenty of red herrings and possible good guys who may in reality be bad. It makes for entertaining twists. The acting is little wooden due mostly to the aforementioned scripted dialog exchanges that drive the plot. Howard’s direction is tighter and less heavy handed than in The DaVinci Code. The beautiful sweeping shots of Rome allow the audience a much-needed chance to take some deep breaths in between the hard driving, fast paced scenes. And when the bomb explodes, it is truly an awesome sight.

WHERE’S AHNULD?
Like a partially destroyed titanium death machine, the Terminator franchise refuses to go down and continues to churn out spin-offs (The Sarah Connor Chronicles) and sequels. The latest in the saga, Terminator Salvation continues to follow the lifeline of John Connor, leader of the Resistance and mankind’s best chance for survival, this time tracking his events in a post-apocalyptic America brimming with mechanical baddies and robotic death-dealers. Fun.

The year is 2018, and Connor (Christian Bale) is no longer the cowardly loner that we saw in Terminator 3, but has developed into a genuine machine-munching super soldier, complete with high tech weaponry and a scowl that would put Patton to shame. Judgment Day, the nuclear holocaust caused by the self aware computer defense system Skynet, wiped out the majority of the Earth’s population, and those left are rigidly divide into two sides—those who fight and those who hide.

Connor, a fighter since his old Eddie Furlong days, is a key member of the Resistance. He is, oddly, not the leader but a lowly lieutenant taking his orders from General Ashdown (a stoic and grizzled Michael Ironside). But the war isn’t going well, and the machines seem to get closer to “human-ocide” every day. Armed with the knowledge of the future entrusted to him by his mother, Conner begins to worry about finding Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), the man he is destined to send back in time to save his mother and eventually become his father. John spends most of his time strategizing with his wife, Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard) and doing his best to keep the remnants of humanity properly inspired and motivated until a new breed of machine—designed to infiltrate and destroy—comes on the scene and attempts to take him out. However, this machine is different than the rest—it thinks that it is human.

Bale and company do their best to make the most of a script that is as devoid of all logic as it is jammed to the brim with B-movie dialogue such as “The only good machine is a dead machine.” An accomplished actor, Bale is reduced to a stoic glare and an apparent affinity for monosyllabic answers. Ironside and Yelchin (whom audiences may recognize as young Ensign Chekov in the new Star Wars) don’t fare much better as the respective paternal substitute and comic relief. The only inspiring bit of acting is done by Aussie Sam Worthington who brings a haunting humanity and enduring eeriness to the film in his portrayal of a cyborg who truly believes that he is human. This certainly isn’t the first time that Bale has found himself upstaged by a supporting role, yet it’s the first time it feels as if he was given much less with which to work.

The main drawing point of the Terminator saga has always been the action sequences and Terminator Salvation certainly lives up its predecessors. The film’s 115 minutes are saturated with enough chases, explosions, gunfire and disarray to make James Cameron’s Terminators look like episodes of Dora the Explorer. However, what director McG fails to bring to the film is the very thing that Cameron excelled at—tension. At no time do you feel even the slightest bit of emotional connection, and the relentless action scenes leave you no time to scan for deeper meanings or hidden references to the older films.

All in all, Terminator Salvation is a competent summer action picture. Though it may not captivate and instill a sense of fulfillment the way that Star Trek or the summer’s other big blockbusters can, it still remains loyal to its fan base, the diehard inner warmonger of a culture that finds devious delight in watching things being “terminated.”
- Adam Pope

“TAKEN” AWAY
If you’re a fan of action packed thrillers with distinct lines separating the good guys from the bad ones and a hero who appears to have superhuman strength and abilities, you probably saw Taken when it was “in theaters everywhere.” If somehow you missed that opportunity, grab a copy of the DVD, a six-pack and some reasonably priced popcorn and enjoy. As an added bonus, the DVD offers you the choice of the more violent unrated version or the mass marketed, less gory PG-13 version.

The (simple) plot focuses on Bryan Mills, a recently retired CIA operative—or “preventer” as he calls himself—played to perfection by Liam Neeson. Mills was always devoted to his job—his family, not so much. Now he’s desperate to rebuild his relationship with his 17-year-old daughter, Kim (Lost’s Maggie Grace). So desperate, in fact, that he has left his job and his friends in Colorado to be closer to the daughter who has become a stranger to him. For the last dozen years, she’s lived with her mother (Famke Janssen) and her incredibly rich stepfather (Xander Berkeley) in sunny Southern California.

When Kim begs her dad’s permission to travel to Europe with her friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy), his instincts tell him it’s a bad idea. But he lets her go, hoping to win her over, or at least not alienate her further. He makes her take a special cell phone and gives her strict instructions to call him when she arrives in Paris. Like every teenager, she forgets to make good on her promises.

After the inevitable and widely seen (on Taken’s trailer) kidnapping takes place, Mills uses his considerable connections, skills and physical prowess to track down and kill the people responsible. And, unlike the real life CIA operatives of the Bush administration, he gets his man. Along the way, he single-handedly maims, murders and tortures many, many Albanian immigrants who, admittedly, seem to deserve it. They are the bad guys who run a sex slavery ring specializing in young silly American girls traveling abroad. It’s all pretty implausible, but somehow Neeson manages to pull it off.
- L.W.

MOVIE QUOTE OF THE FORTNIGHT
“Have you seen that Joe Francis guy who made Girls Gone Wild? That guy’s the biggest *&#$ing idiot piece of #$@% in the world, and he has a jet and a *&#$ing island.”
- From Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno

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