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Armin Mueller-Stahl as Straus, Ewan McGregor as Carlo Ventresca

But if Angels & Demons is more entertaining than The Da Vinci Code on one level, it is less enjoyable on another. Put simply, the previous film was almost saved by the late appearance of Ian McKellen as one of Langdon's colleagues; while everyone around him acted so serious, you could tell that McKellen was having fun, at least, perhaps because he recognized how campy and ridiculous the whole thing was. Alas, no such irreverence is to be found in Angels & Demons, partly because the supporting actors keep a straight face throughout.

Stellan Skarsgård plays the pious but sarcastic Swiss Guard officer who looks just a little too offended when scientists use expressions like "the God particle" in his presence; Ewan McGregor plays an earnest priest known as the "Camerlengo," who served as the previous Pope's assistant and retains a certain amount of authority around Vatican City until the next Pope has been picked; Pierfrancesco Favino plays Inspector Olivetti, the policeman who whisks Langdon and Vittoria all over Rome; and Armin Mueller-Stahl plays Cardinal Strauss, the man who presides over the conclave where the next Pope will be elected.

You could write a book—and indeed, many people have—about the many errors that crop up in Brown's novel and thus in the film as well, with regard to the Catholic church's history and self-organization; but as far as the film's general attitude toward Christianity is concerned, Angels & Demons might be a slight improvement on its predecessor. For one thing, there are no more lurid flashbacks depicting the atrocities, fictitious or otherwise, that Langdon says an earlier generation of Christians committed. And Langdon, who once suggested that there might be no difference between humanity and divinity, is now compelled to admit that he doesn't believe in God—and he doesn't really know what to say when one ticked-off Catholic tells him, "My church comforts the sick and dying. My church feeds the hungry. What does your church do? That's right, you don't have one."

Getting to the bottom of the mystery

On the other hand, without giving too much away, the movie also paints a consistently poor picture of Catholic piety, from a murderous fanatic who thinks modern science is "blasphemy" to the easily duped cardinals and laypeople who are not only tricked into thinking highly of one of the villains, but believe it is God's will that honors be bestowed upon him. Cardinal Strauss even refuses to evacuate Vatican City, upon learning of the antimatter bomb, partly because he doesn't want to cause any sort of panic, but also because, as he puts it, all those pilgrims outside are all going to heaven eventually anyway—and he's supposed to be one of the more sympathetic Catholic characters in this film!

And of course, all that business from the first film, about the Catholic church "covering up" the "truth" about Jesus, still lurks in the background of this one. (When the Vatican first approaches Langdon for help, he says he's surprised because he didn't think the events of the previous film had endeared him to them.) So in its own way, Angels and Demons just perpetuates the first film's assertion that the church consists, on the one hand, of gullible people who will believe any lies that are fed to them, and, on the other hand, of leaders who, perhaps even with the best of intentions, are content to let those lies sit there.

Some people have defended this film by saying it's "only fiction," but that argument only goes so far. From Uncle Tom's Cabin to This Present Darkness, fiction has had a profound effect on the way people think and act—so an argument can certainly be made that we ought to take this movie, and the book on which it is based, at least somewhat seriously. On the other hand, the movie remains pretty silly, even though it omits some of the novel's goofiest elements—so shrugging it off may be the better option after all.

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