Angels & Demons

Confucius say, "Book is always bettah than movie."

I watched 'Angels & Demons' with Fatinn, Emily and a friend of theirs this morning. 

And man, I have to admit I was quite disappointed. 

WARNING: There may be some spoilers. I don't know, really. But if you want a completely un-ruined movie plot, don't read.

Firstly, they cut out Maximilian Kohler. Why? Maybe they're prejudiced against handicapped people with gadget-filled wheelchairs who hold supreme power in the world's largest particle-whatever research centre. He was like, semi-main character, man.

I understand that the time was too short for proper character development to take place. Without character development, the movie was a confusing jumble of running, statues of angels, gunshots and people arguing, and eventually dying. 

They also made Vittoria Vetra seem like some filler chick who happened to be there. They didn't say it was she who invented the canister, or the dude whose eyeball the Hassassin dug out was her adoptive father, or that she was much, much smarter than portrayed. It seems like the only dude with an actual brain there was Robert Langdon. It's like, poof, and he knows everything. Wow. Amazing. 

I also understand that the movie can't follow the book exactly and precisely, but come on, man. 

What about the Hassassin? He was being all cool and then kaboom, he dies. Nobody knows what's going on. What happened? Why did it explode? The leader dude tricked him, that's why. But that doesn't even happen in the book. They don't mention Janus either. 

Worse of all, the camerlengo turned all Scottish/Irish (they changed his name from Carlo to Patrick. Like, what?). Loved his accent though.

I seem to steal a lot from Wiki nowadays.

'Mark Kermode called it "the stupidest movie ever made" and went on to expand that "the thing it has over The Da Vinci Code - The Da Vinci Code was people running into rooms, standing still, pointing, and explaining the plot. Now they point and explain the plot while they're running."' - Wikipedia

But yeah, it wasn't too bad. 

And the foreign accents rocked. 

So if you haven't read the book, yeah go on, watch it. It's pretty awesome.

P.S. I bought 'Boy and Going Solo' by Roald Dahl (always wanted to read those) and The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Still haven't read Kite Runner, and Acacia (the book, not the tree) by David Anthony Durham.