20 for 2009 - Angels & Demons

I'm a fairly MOR film fan. I like films with medium sized budgets with actors and directors I respect. It is therefore rare that I get interested in blockbusters. In fact as I wind down this list of top 20 films I'm looking forward to in 2009 I will name drop a few I have no interest in at all. However Angels & Demons is one blockbuster I will wait in line for.

Tom Hanks is running this way (without the mullet from The Da Vinci Code).

When The Da Vinci Code was released it didn't really work at all. The pace was bogged down by unneccesary exposition, the plot was unbareably convoluted, Tom Hanks hair was a disaster. Nevertheless it grossed over $200m in the States, more than breaking even and greenlighting Dan Brown's prequel.

Hopefully Ron Howard and his team have recognised what was wrong with the original and crafted a more exciting thriller this time round. It is a much better novel which should make for a tighter screenplay - no red herrings in the cast and you won't need a degree in the beginnings of catholocism to understand all the references. It's still hokum mind - an anti-matter bomb hidden under the vatican by a millenia old sect determined to destroy the Church - but if the pacing is good we can all forget about the bad science and wonky history.

There's a lot more inside the Vatican scenes so I'm expecting some gloroius costumes from Daniel Orlandi who had surprisingly little to work with in Da Vinci. Also returning is Hans Zimmer whose compositions accompanying the previous film were probably the only well regarded part of it.



Alongside Tom is Ayelet Zurer (Munich, Adam Resurrected), Ewan MacGregor and Stellan Skarsgård as well as a number of other international stars.

Here's the teaser trailer, in case you haven't already stumbled across it.