Tackling a Dan Brown film adaptation on a critical level is akin to committing textual hari-kiri. Such folly to peek around the corpulent mass of worldwide receipts totalling over 700 million just to poke at the lifeless form of ‘The Da Vinci Code’.
What’s most amusing about the adaptation of the second in the Robert Langdon sequence is that it really should be the first. ‘Angels and Demons’ having been published before ‘The Da Vinci Code’. The grand revelation of Mary now coming before the events of this movie. An obvious retcon considering the huge success of the book, but a stupid one because it completely negates its efficacy.
When Langdon shares a joke over the revelation with a papal representative in the opening, it only cements the obvious: Dan Brown’s works are nothing more than potboilers. Never meant to stir up any controversy. Hardy Boys novels writ large and looking to the almighty dollar like any enterprising scriptwriter latching onto the new money-machine trend.
Their success is solely down to the ridiculous fervour generated by the media and subsequently by the first thousand readers who yawningly leafed through them at an airport bookstand. And of course it should be no surprise, then, that films based on pedestrian works will produce wholly pedestrian films.
Saying that, one of the few things this film does gets right, at least on the surface, is streamlining. Scripter Akiva Goldsman has clearly learned from the meandering debacle of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and cut much of the fat, conflated characters and reduced the role of the Hassashin to little more than hired Merc.
He’s also one of the best characters, and says very little. Unlike the rest of our cast, and specifically our lead.
Tom Hanks’ Robert Langdon has to be one of the most impotent heroes in cinema. When he’s not giving us, I’m sorry, Dr Vetra (Ayelet Zurer, reduced to beautiful yet bland helper-heroine) impromptu lectures on the history, and much maligned with it, of the Catholic Church, he’s rushing around Rome like a more cavalier Simon Schama; failing miserably to save anyone. Not to say Hanks is bad. It’s impossible to hide that infectious wit and charm. It’s just as the focus of a movie, there seems very little reason for him to be there.
So desperate not to repeat the mistakes of the first film, and more probably an effect of the rush to complete the script before the Writers’ Strike, action takes centre stage. Our heroes facing off against an Illuminati threat that has, following the death of the Pope, planted an anti-matter bomb somewhere in the Vatican, taken the four papal candidates captive and threatened to kill them, one every hour. It’s up to Indiana Langdon to find them and prevent an explosion that could take out the Vatican and a large chunk of Rome with it.
It all sounds very exciting, and to the credit of director Ron Howard it very nearly is. His camera whipping from chapel to crypt, crypt to church; by car and on foot. Unfortunately, he does such a good job of the look of the film that, as each scene ends with failure, you start to appreciate it more as a very lush, evocative, but breathless travelogue.
‘If you’ll look to your left you’ll see a beautiful CGI recreation of the Pantheon and over there is the equally striking Santa Maria della Vittoria. Oh, please ignore those screams, that’s just a cardinal being burned alive. Now, moving on…’ Joking aside, on the visual side this film is superlative and for that the filmmakers should be commended highly.
It‘s a shame then, that amidst the increasingly deflating tension, the film feels the need to say something. And so we get softly spoken Camerlengo Patrick McKenna. And you have to pity poor Ewan McGregor who’d actually be quite commanding if it wasn’t for his faltering Irish accent and the string of sermons he has to give. One of them an excruciating speech, ostensibly calling for parity between religion and science, yet filtered through the usual patronising Catholic mandate.
These faults even manage to dim the glow of Howard’s success with ‘Frost/Nixon’. His decision to drench the film in obvious light/dark opposition and that heavy Catholic fear is one thing, but composing clumsy images as when Langdon tosses aside the white collar from a priest’s shirt is beneath him. There’s even the on-message appearance of a stem cell protest at the site of one of the murders.
On the other hand he also shows signs of continued improvement. In one spectacular image, rupturing the heavens themselves, and turning them into a tableau of the cosmos. In another he makes all the grinding talky-talk redundant, juxtaposing the potential of the LHC machinery with the smoke rising up through the Sistine Chapel chimney. Both objects that could communicate change for the good, as well as the bad. One of science. One of religion.
Unfortunately these successes are all but smothered by the interminable spat between the two disciplines. It’s left to the fine work by composer Hans Zimmer to lift the film, much as it was in the previous one. It’s the usual mix of choral blast, matching the Catholic darkness and pomposity onscreen, and moments of serene contemplation. Thanks to Zimmer the film is taken to heights it really doesn’t deserve.
Welcome to episode one in the reboot of the Star Trek franchise. Not just a reference to J.J. Abrams TV roots, but also a frankly unnecessary Lucas-ification of material that once served as inspiration to the less intellectually stimulating, more action driven fun of Star Wars.
The humanist, positivist philosophy of Rodenberry is subdued, and in its place are goofy moments of comedy involving dinky little aliens, sentimental sound cues cribbed from Lost, slapstick transporter overshoots and poor choices in editing cues that turn once legendary catchphrases like, ‘Live long and prosper’ into middle finger one-liners.
More importantly though, replacing the more contemplative moments, the kinds suggested by those pulsating first notes of the classic theme, is a more prosaic questing story, similar to one through which another legendary sci-fi character was brought to our attention.
Luke Skywalker and James Tiberius Kirk, both farm boys, both fatherless. Both unconsciously driven to better themselves. In this film their paths are intrinsically linked. In fact in one scene involving the straw haired moppet Kirk, and some joyriding stupidity, it even betters Star Wars for obnoxious petulance.
And the parallels go on; Luke staring out at the twin suns replaced by Kirk’s pit stop at the shipyard where the Enterprise is being constructed. His Obi-wan, the equally commanding Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike.
It’s Pike that takes Kirk’s rebellious, bar-brawling energy, and attempts to channel it into a career at the Federation, a kind of galactic UN, that serves as an exploration and peace keeping force. Little of which we see in this film.
In short, the film is far from perfect. In fact at times it battles with mediocrity, the central time travel theme a contrivance rather than an intriguing look at the future and mankind’s greatest frontier. It leaves poor Leonard Nimoy, returning as original Spock, as little more than doddery plot device, slotting the core cast neatly into their respective roles.
This leaves the action as filler. Starship battles that would make Lord Nelson’s eyes bleed replace submarine ping subtlety. All noise, glossy effects and glossy gyroscopic cameras. Without proper motivation and therefore significance, it’s left to the worst kinks of Star Trek, the smoke screen science, to support it. And so transporter signals are jammed, and we get an admittedly thrilling, yet vapid super sonic freefall closely followed by the clash of steel.
What’s worse, amidst these streaks of CGI colour which are, in the case of one heroic phaser battle, nigh on incomprehensible, we realise the movie lacks a decent villain. Eric Bana’s Nero, a petulant, shouty infant compared to the Shakespearean stature of Montalban’s Khan. Seriously, the biggest threat to our new look crew is a stellar miner.
Saying that, as is true for all of Abram’s previous work, it’s the character work that saves this movie. More than that; it manages to turn it into a truly stirring piece of cinema.
Each of the beloved characters are present and correct. Chris Pine displaying all the playboy swagger of Kirk, nailing classic Shatnerian joie de vivre in the film’s final moments, and adding youth and vigour to the role. Quite simply he’s the better actor, bringing an immediate presence, rather than one embellished by time and cult following.
He’s matched by Zachary Quinto, giving a superb performance as young Spock; perpetually in conflict with an emotional spectrum you realise is almost as alien a concept as he is. He shares some wonderfully tender moments with Zoe Saldana as Uhura, who balances vulnerability with nerdy bullishness to perfection.
Likewise, his clashes with the acid tongue of realist Dr Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy (Karl Urban as the film’s true highlight) not only give us some of the best lines in ‘green-blooded hobgoblin’, but sells some of the more intrusive classic references the movie throws up.
While Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Sulu (John Cho) and Scotty (Simon Pegg) aren’t quite there yet as characters, Yelchin little more than a comedy accent and Pegg a slightly less demented Sick Boy from ‘Trainspotting‘, you can’t help but be charmed by these characters interactions and altercations. The movie managing to capture some of the elusive, swashbuckling heart of the matinee.
So exciting, sure. Thrilling, most definitely. But where’s the epic implied by that fantastic final trailer? Where’s the things Roy Batty has seen? The things we wouldn’t believe. Maybe they’ll always be the domain of machines. Us humans are too busy being blinded by 80s strobes, deafened by cacophonous sound effects and seduced by young pups with movie star charisma.
Or maybe, as the pilot episode structure suggests it’s all there waiting, ready to be explored. Ready to germinate in future episodes and become far more than streaks of coloured, magical light going at warp speed.
