Good news, folks! If you loved last year’s thrill-a-minute, rollercoaster ride, in no way boring, lifeless and soul-destroying blockbuster, The Da Vinci Code, then prepare to be overjoyed: for there’s another one just like it on the way!
Yes, at long last, the rumours that director Ron Howard and star Tom Hanks would sign on to make Angels & Demons, the first Dan Brown ‘novel’ that introduces ace Harvard professor Robert Langdon and which is alarmingly similar to The Da Vinci Code in almost every way, have now solidified into fact.
The duo have indeed signed on the line that is dotted, Columbia Pictures have targeted a January start date for filming, and ace Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (Lost In Space, Batman & Robin) is already on the case, rifling furiously through Brown’s masterpiece with a big red pen, trying to find something new and exciting in a plot which sees Langdon called on – again – to solve a horrific ritualistic murder, this time in Rome. Once there, he discovers that an ancient cult called the Illuminati are trying to blow up the Vatican, and it’s a race against time etc. etc.
Forgive us if we seem overly cynical, but **The Da Vinci Code **movie was so immensely soporific that the prospect of another two hours of Hanks running around dark corridors in ludicrous hair extensions, making a ‘I’m having a really tough poo’ face when called upon to work out some ancient and baffling code, while a beautiful girl young enough to be his daughter tags along (in this case, it’s rumoured to be Gisele Bundchen as nuclear scientist Vittoria Vetra, in the stead of Audrey Tautou’s Jesus Christ Jnr.), is enough to make us curl up in a little ball in the hope that, if we ignore it, it might go away.
However, we are duty-bound to point out that Angels & Demons has many things going for it. One, Howard is too good and too reliable to simply wheel out the same old schtick again, and the critical mauling handed out to the first movie must surely prompt him to rethink his approach. (Although the $758 million grossed globally by The Da Vinci Code is a strong argument to carry on in the same manner, admittedly).
Then, loathe though we are to admit it, but Angels & Demons is a better book than The Da Vinci Code – more immediately and obviously cinematic, with a plot that may not be entirely believable but which moves along at a fair old pelt. And it’s certainly less beloved than The Da Vinci Code, which may perhaps mean that the movie won’t be such a slavish adaptation.
And then there’s Hanks. The first movie wasn’t his strongest point, but if he ditches the lousy hair and allows some of his old movie star charm to peek through, that might just be enough to make us forget that Sir Ian McKellen – by some distance the best thing about The Da Vinci Code – won’t be in this one.
Angels & Demons, ostensibly a prequel although there's no real need for it to be so on the big screen, is set for release on December 19, 2008. Perhaps it will be better-suited, tonally, to a Christmas release. As ever, we’ll bring you more – including further casting news – when we get it.