Angels & Demons takes place not long after the events of The Da Vinci Code (though the book is actually a prequel to that controversial novel). While Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) spent time in his last adventure disproving some of the Catholic Church's core beliefs, this time they have asked for his help in order to keep four cardinals, all prime candidates to replace the recently deceased Pope, from dying at the hands of a long-dead secret society, The Illuminati.
Langdon is paired up with physicist Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), whose experiments in antimatter have become the core of the terrorist threat since The Illuminati have stolen a capsule of the substance stored in a magnetic field that is set to shut off at midnight and take all of The Vatican with it. In a race against time, Langdon and Vetra have to unravel the clues left by the current incarnation of the old society, as well as the symbols found throughout Rome and The Vatican, in order to find each of the cardinals before they are branded and killed, and find the bomb before it's too late.
Helping them on their quest is Camerlengo Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor), a priest whose role gives him Papal power until the cardinals decide on a replacement. McKenna is joined by Commander Richter (Stellan Skarsgard) of the Swiss Guard (the Vatican Police) and Inspector Olivetti (Pierfrancesco Favino) of the Roman Police Department. Between getting access to The Vatican Archives and being taxied around the city, Langdon and Vetra will need a lot of help from both people in order to get the job done and find out who is behind the kidnappings and killings.
While an interesting story, I didn't find it nearly as compelling a movie as The Da Vinci Code. I think one of the reasons for this is the fact that Langdon was pursued by cops throughout the first movie as a murder suspect, and here, while there is a time crunch, there isn't really a major threat to our main character. Because of this, the movie felt a little slow at times, at least compared to the non-stop running and symbology lessons found in the first film.
As for the fact that the movie is in high definition, yes it looks better, but there are only a few scenes where the increase in visual quality really helps, and most of those are at the end of the film when they finally find the antimatter container. What the Blu-ray version does give you is a few added special features over the DVD release. Both versions have featurettes on the writing, the making of the film and various other standard features, but this one comes with an interesting database of knowledge called "The Path Of Illumination" that gives you insights into each of the locations Langdon visits in Angels & Demons. These locations include Piazza Del Popolo, Santa Maria Della Vittoria, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona and, of course, St. Peter's Square. At each location, you will not only get treated to some footage from the area and the set, but also details about its history, what Langdon and Vetra did at that location, and even the elemental symbol associated with it.
Angels & Demons is an okay followup to The Da Vinci Code, but just like the book, didn't receive a whole lot of recognititon until its sequel came out. The same can be said of this movie - its only claim to fame and real intrigue comes from continuing Langdon's story and the hype left behind from the movie's prequel. Still, if you like a good mystery with intrigue and a bit of symbology thrown in, then Angels & Demons is worth seeing at least once. I'm just not really sure the Blu-ray 2-Disc Extended & Theatrical Edition version is worth a purchase. Maybe a rental, but not really a purchase.
