There was nothing else

 

Yeah, yeah, I know, where have I been? Well as for my post last week I have been busy. It can’t be helped.

It is kinda late and I doubt any of you care but I saw Angels & Demons last week. Why? You may ask. Simple, there was nothing else to go see. This was showing in like 4 theatres, I had seen whatever else I wanted to see, and the other movies were just crap and I utterly refused to watch them. I knew this was going to be a waste but I wanted to watch something and it was less of a waste than all the others.

I read The Da Vinci Code. Not because I wanted to but because I worked at a bookstore when all the hype first started. It was sort of mandatory to read cuz we were getting inundated with questions about the book. Our manager wanted us to be able to answer the customers with informed answers. I have to say I wasn’t impressed and I still don’t understand what the big deal was. So I didn’t bother seeing the movie.

With Angels & Demons I didn’t bother reading the book. Why would I? I didn’t like the first one so why would I waste my time with the second one? (Actually Angels & Demons was released before The Da Vinci Code but whatever) The movie turned out to be just like Dan Brown’s writing, a lot of flash but mediocre and kinda flat.

It wasn’t a horrible movie, it just wasn’t particularly good. Sure it was grand with it taking place at the Vatican and there were quick flashes, and explosions, and death, and gadgets, and chase scenes, but that didn’t really help. It was just missing something to give it that intensity. It also didn’t help that the movie was somewhat predictable and all the actors seemed to be just be reading their lines. There was no sense of urgency, or pain, or awe, it was just blah.

The problem with both The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons is that they seem to be written solely because someone was watching way too much TLC or Discovery and wanted to show how much they have learned. There was a big uproar about how Dan Brown was trying to spread “his lies” about the bible and the church; I once over heard 2 women arguing calling him a “very dangerous man”. People were taking the book way to seriously. But if they had ever watched one of those in depth and highly educational shows about the history of the bible, the life of Jesus, or the history of Christianity, they would not have been surprised by anything that Dan Brown touched on in his books. The reason why the books took off was because he dumbed all of it down so it was easily digestible and people mistook this for it being good. Brown takes the hand of the reader and leads them down a bland trail explaining every little detail without making you work for it. There is no intrigue, mystery, or thought. Everything is face value.

And they have done exactly the same thing with the movie. Every time Robert Langdon, Tom Hanks (he’s the only one that matters), says anything he explains it in concise detail. Or if someone else (they were just there so Langdon had other things to talk about) says something or has a revelation he goes ahead and fills in all the blanks. 

I can’t recommend this movie. It is not good enough for you to spend $10 and sit in a theatre for 138 minutes. It is the kind of movie you watch when you have had a bad day, or a long day, or a stressful day and you just need to unwind, you turn on the TV and there it is. Your brain doesn’t have to do anything. You just have to let the images flicker before your eyes.

But this week Terminator Salvation is coming out and I hope it is good.

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