Angels and Demons

[Albereth]

How does a 5 kilo tonne airburst explosion that knocks everyone over on the ground not completely shred a parachute?

Good yarn I suppose for a Sunday afternoon - wait for it to be on MNet, not the movies.

[Arbythep00nage]

lol!
Nice description Alby. I get upset by stuff like that, I need continuity not some silly thing where one person gets to use the haxx and everyone else has to do stuff the conventional way.

[Askari]

Hax in movies sux.

[stoke]

Yea! Uber realisim please.

- No more flashy bright red and yellow explosions, only the real thing where a quick sound, much like a clap destroys structure, without any flame whatsoever.
- No more never need to reload guns.
- No more not going to the toilet.
- No more not eating and drinking.
- No more not putting petrol in the cars.
- No more not waiting for service at a restaurant.
- No more non existent queue's at the ATM's / Wherever!
- No more instant car hot-wiring.
- No more soft and flimsy front doors.
- No more : one punch / smack and you're out.
- No more one bullet instant deaths, with no screaming in pain and no gurgling noises.
- No more car pulling off or cornering with screeching tyre noise.
- No more bullet proof tyres.
- No more surf scenes in the pool.

Okay, I got bored with this.

I like a believable movie. I hate all this fakeness, but, I did get to see 20 minutes of an old 70's movie involving an early al-pachino in a bank robbery and I admit to being bored to tears after the first 8 minutes.

Believable, but still entertaining please.

[senorblinky]

Nuking the fridge, in the last indiana jones - sure!

[Thumponius]

The fridge trick is at least theoretically feasible. The blip is where they left out the crush effect of overpressure from the explosion and don't forget the physical injuries of being thrown around like a pea in a barrel.

[Tresbien]

Aw come on guys, where's your sense of roleplay, suspend belief for a few hours :D

OK, but I must admit I'm being a teensy bit of a hypocrit here, I *gril - Afrikaans* when I see badly performed CPR

Still looking forward to seeing Angels and Demons (the movie) though.

[GeroW4lll]

OK well I saw angels and demons this weekend and I thought it was pretty realistic COMPARED TO THE CRAP YOU WOULD READ IN THE BOOK.

Realistic is nothing really, its all about being credible. You know the crap in Jurassic Park is unrealistic but they spend the first 2 hours demonstrating high-tec toys and using big words to convince you that the DNA is clumping; They're binding, if you will. And therefore the movie is credable. Convincing you to suspend your disbelief.

I truly feel the changes that the script writers (David Koepp & Akiva Goldsman) made to the Dan Brown book were IMPROVEMENTS. In the book, not only does the parachute survive the 50 kiloton explosion, but the parachuting dude doesn't even get injured at all. Least Ewan McGregor bleeds a little after surviving his ride on the ultra-tear-resistant-parachute. And he starts acting kinda erratic making you think he probably landed on his head, which is nice. But to crown the nonsense, in the book, his passenger who didn't have a parachute survives the same jump through the same 50 kiloton explosion, riding down on the helicopter's windscreen sunshade. Go and read it if you want, he really does. But I firmly advise against it. But in the movie, he didn't have a passenger! I therefore wholeheartedly commend the script writers for saving a good yarn out of the unbelievable, credibility lacking story that Dan Brown produced from his originally pretty neat idea (I might even say brilliant).

In fact, I'm not really a great Dan Brown fan at all since reading Digital Fortress. What idiot doesn't know today that if your pc has a virus you can stop the virus by pulling the plug? Dan Brown, that's who. (RAM is volatile Mr Brown. Look that up!) And yet he has these poor people trapped by this virus in this computer room with computer controlled doors, for ages. It's the main plot device of his book. And it's rubbish! Unfortunately I'm unable to put a stupid story book down when I see it's stupid, so he had me screaming pull the !@#$%^ plug for all the rest of the 384 pages!

Now in order to make this a fair and objective review, I have to say what David Koepp & Akiva Goldsman, the screenwriters, did wrong. Well tidying up a story as complicated as this is a pretty big job, so I don't blame them for leaving a few lose ends. Unfortunately in unravelling the story line to get it credible, they left a few loose ends of their own. The first example from the opening scenes, is that Tom Hanks is fetched by an emissary of the dead pope's office from a swimming pool. Dan Brown put the swimming pool there to convince us that Tom Hanks, a professor of symbology (I'm sure you mean symbolism, what is the symbolism?) could outfight a professional contract killer in the fountain scene, because he swims better and can hold his breath longer. I would have bought that, even from Dan Brown. I mean in Apollo 13 he held his breath all the way back from the moon! In Castaway, Tom Hanks out-swam a shark and fell in love with a basket ball named Gobbles. And did you ever see this guy run? But I digress. Everything in movies is supposed to be there for a reason. And the swimming pool isn't there for a reason any more. They might as well have introduced Tom Hanks getting off the plane with the pope's office's representative saying thank you for coming on such short notice Dr of Symboligy Tom Hanks. They didn't (comma) because contract killer was watching the opening scenes, you see, and therefore when Tom Hanks arrived at the fountain (comma) contract killer knew he would get his ass kicked cause he can't hold his breath, and therefore he ran like a yellow bellied greensnake when he saw Tom. Even though he still had enough rage after killing those two hunters... um cops..., way enough to tank Tom Hanks (who apparently had concentrated more on his profession of scribe than his questing), he didn't because he knew Tom is a Druid and he only needs to go Aquatic-form to breath water.

[Drusky]

It was a volley ball called Wilson. How could you forget? That ball was his own flesh and blood... well it was his own blood on the ball. Drop and do fifty pushups!

[Voicy]

It was a volley ball called Wilson. How could you forget? That ball was his own flesh and blood... well it was his own blood on the ball. Drop and do fifty pushups!

Hehe ... wilson...

I had a rugby ball in Germany that my mates there adopted and called him "Gilbert" :D

[rainy]

I enjoyed the movie. While I didn't feel that the changes that were made compared to the book were improvements - more like workarounds to evade the complexity of the story - I think that they set it into scene well. A&D is still the better of the two books, and the movie came out a lot better than the first one as well. Less drag, more pace - perhaps a bit too much pace at times. At the end of the day, while it won't go down as a truly memorable movie, this is good for about two hours of entertainment on the big screen, and it was never meant to be any more.

---------- Post added at 01:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:39 PM ----------

Oh, and Gero... whatever you're smoking dude, lay it off :p

[GeroW4lll]

Glad you enjoyed it Rainy. Rep to the first person to name all the movie and TV references in that review :D

[Stool]

Took this out tonight. blueray rental. Man I was really immersed in it. Was a good bit of movie for escapism.

Some religious history (no idea how true it is, dont really care, was told well)
Some amazing scenery
Some action
Some crossing
Some double crossing
A slick fast chopper thown in the middle of it all

Really enjoyed it

[TG]

I think the best way to enjoy movies is not to try over analyze them.
Just switch off the brain, open the mouth a bit, let the tongue hang out a bit for the drool to have a channel out, and then watch a movie.

[rainy]

Dude, remind me to not watch movies at your place again :p It's a ghastly sight!