Film Rating: B

Some filmmakers will create whole franchises without ever listening to their audience or addressing fan concerns (i.e. anything made at 20 th Century Fox or by George Lucas), but one of the first rules of storytelling is to know your audience. Knowing your audience also involves listening to what they have to say, and to use this information when making a sequel. Ron Howard and the creative team behind Angels and Demons have definitely followed these rules, and as such, this sequel is far, far superior to 2006's The DaVinci Code.

The first film, while not a total waste by any means, was far too slow, wordy, and clunky to be called a success; most of these problems lied in a firm rigidity to following the novel by Dan Brown. The problem was that DaVinci Code is not a cinematic novel, its long chapters of exposition and dialogue obviously unsuitable for the big screen. Cinema and literature are two different mediums, and when adapting a book like DaVinci Code for film, you have to change things. Sadly, they didn't, and the first movie could be described as dull.

Dull is pretty much the last word I would use when describing the sequel, Angels and Demons, which addresses nearly every critical complaint of the first movie. Characters don't just stand around and discuss history-they actually go out and do stuff. The stakes are high and the thrills are plentiful, and because of this, the revelations in the mystery actual feel like they're worth something. They've even fixed Tom Hanks' hair!

Angels and Demons, based on the first book Dan Brown wrote about Robert Langdon (even though it's been filmed as a sequel), plays out much like a Michael Crichton story, but with a lot more religious elements. Someone has robbed a canister of antimatter from CERN laboratories, a substance that could instantaneously eliminate a whole city; meanwhile, the Vatican is getting ready to enter conclave and choose their next pope after the death of the last one. The problem? Four cardinals, the ones most likely to get the job, have been kidnapped and the criminals say that they will kill one of them on the hour at 8, 9, 10, and 11 o'clock at night. That canister of anti-matter? It goes off at 12. The group behind all this is the Illuminati, an ancient organization the church thought they had wiped out in a brutal massacre centuries ago; so the Vatican does the only logical thing they can do, and call in symbologist Robert Langdon.

Okay, so it doesn't sound that logical, but the movie doesn't take itself too seriously. The story in DaVinci Code was also inherently ridiculous, but with that film adaptation, they failed to realize it. With Angels, they don't try to over explain everything. As the plot progresses, we jump from clue to clue with just the bare minimum of explanation needed. The result is a fast-paced, edge of your seat thriller. We still get to learn some interesting history regarding the Vatican and related organizations, and director Ron Howard has a firm grasp on the central theme of religion vs. science. Indeed, the film's biggest accomplishment is in how it delivers the message that religion and science shouldn't be at odds, but should instead be supporting each other.

But in terms of storytelling, the movie isn't perfect. I love everything in the middle of the movie-the true meat of the story and action. It's all great. The beginning and ending, however, are a bit more clunky and troublesome. The first twenty minutes or so of the film had me flashing back to DaVinci Code, and I couldn't help but think that I was in for a long two hours. The book's opening of Langdon being summoned by CERN and then travelling through the Vatican has been excised in favor of opening with two scenes, one explaining the Vatican rituals after the death of a pope, and the other demonstrating how CERN creates anti-matter. This all goes on for a good ten minutes, and I was wondering if we were ever going to see the protagonist. Tom Hanks does finally appear and goes straight to the Vatican-a good choice pacing wise. When he gets there, however, all the characters stand around talking symbols and history, and there's no real sense of urgency. Four cardinals are about to die horrible deaths and the anti-matter might destroy all of Rome, but no one seems to care too much.

The films kicks into high gear when they find where the first Cardinal is being held, and from there, the film goes along smoothly (hell, it goes along brilliantly well) until we reach the endgame. At this point, some very strange changes are made from the book that left me puzzled; there are plenty of changes from the book in the film's first two acts, but none of these upset me. However, if the third act had stuck just a bit closer to the novel, I think we would have had a stronger finale. I don't want to spoil anything, but let me just say that there are a string of small changes that prevent Langdon from doing his two most heroic acts in the whole series, and he's essentially left out of the climax entirely; from that point on, he's barely in the movie. It felt like Ron Howard had forgotten who his protagonist was, and this was rather jarring.

The final twist could have been handled better; it felt very organic and interesting in the book, but it feels sort of tacked on in the movie, as if they really just wanted to stretch out the running time. By the very end, though, it's all tied off nicely and the movie certainly goes out on a high note. I really wish that the beginning of the first act and the entirety of the third act had been ironed out more, but I suppose that's what they invented the B grade for (I'm guessing these parts of the film were casualties of the writer's strike that sent the film into production with a script that, under usual circumstances, would have been revised a few more times).

One of the biggest improvements over DaVinci Code is the star himself, Tom Hanks. Hanks is a truly remarkable actor, but I don't think he was the right choice for this role; inthe first film, it just felt like he was reading the lines. There was nothing behind it. For Angels and Demons, he seems to have really found the character, and does the usual great job we would expect from him. I still think that there are other actors out there better suited for this character, but we're stuck with Hanks and he did a damn fine job this time around.

The only other notable acting performance is Ewan McGregor as the Camerlengo, the pope's assistant who is now in charge of papal affairs. He really is the perfect choice for the role, even if the character's nationality had to be changed to fit his own accent. Otherwise, though, the other characters all feel rather bland. None of the performances are bad, but there's really nothing behind them. For the movie, every other character has been stripped down to pawns on the chess board that is the story, people that move from point A to point B so the movie can go on and Tom Hanks can have his adventure. For the most part, I didn't find this a problem. Hanks does a fine job carrying the movie. But his partner in the movie, Vittoria, has her entire character arc stripped away. Actress Ayelet Zurer fares perfectly well in the role, but she doesn't have a lot to do, and that's too bad.

Hans Zimmer's musical score is, like in the first movie, big, sweeping, bombastic, and accompanied by a massive choir. The music was far too big and distracting in the first movie, but because of how high the stakes have been raised in Angels and Demons, it works perfectly here. Some of the action scenes wouldn't have been nearly as thrilling or, in some cases, frightening without Zimmer's help.

In the end, Angels and Demons is a long way from being perfect, but it does plenty right and winds up being a damn entertaining two hours. I'd recommend checking it out; this is the kind of sequel you can come into clean without any prior knowledge about the franchise. As summer entertainment goes, this is good stuff.