Church at the Movies

I never read The DaVinci Code. I tried to watch the movie several times and I kept falling asleep. I generally hate everything that has that much hype to it, but I was kind of surprised that the storyline didn't keep my attention. At all.

I had to get out of the heat this afternoon and since it was Sunday, I decided that Angels and Demons was the most like going to church. Clearly that counts for something!

It started off strong, with Tom Hanks in the Harvard swimming pool. I was struck by his physique and thought maybe they had a body double - or is Tom Hanks really that fit?

The chases and murders were all exciting and appropriately bloody and violent. Tom Hanks was - eh. He supposedly had all the knowledge to solve the crime, but he didn't really do much else, besides run a lot. Ewan McGregor had a twisty kind of a character, and he took me by surprise.

I fell asleep for a good 20 minutes and when I woke up, I knew exactly what was happening, because the same thing had been happening for the previous hour. Run, find the church, remember tiny detail, find other church, find a dying/dead cardinal, run to the next church, and on and on.

It's entertaining enough, more so than The DaVinci Code. Fairly predictable. And, if you go on a Sunday, it has enough talk about God, the Church and good and evil to totally count as... something.

Verdict: It's a strong renter.