I did something this morning I have never done before in my life.....as you probably know Angels and Demons premiered at midnight Thursday night/Friday morning. While I didn't feel like staying up till after three in the morning for the premiere I did want to see the movie and didn't particularly want to fight the Friday night 'date night' crowd or sit in a theatre filled with teenagers trying to act cool. So I bought advance tickets for my oldest daughter, youngest son and myself. All three of us had read DaVinci Code (didn't everybody?) and we all saw the movie the weekend it premiered. We were also all in agreement that it was a great book and an okay movie...not bad not great but a movie that contained the kernel of a great movie but some how it missed. Whether the movie's ultimate disappointment was due to including too much of Dan Brown's book, careless editing, poor casting or a combination of these problems and just plain too much advance hype, the movie (in our opinions) suffered greatly in comparison with the original book. Personally I think it had something to do with Tom Hank's terrible haircut!
Angels and Demons however is a completely different story. I made a valiant effort to read the book, picking it up and putting it down at least half a dozen times and never finished it. My oldest daughter (probably the last in the family to actually read DaVinci) devoured Angels and designed a count-down calendar on her computer to the movie release date. So the three of us set our alarms, got to the theatre about 9:30a.m., DID NOT buy popcorn (we smuggled McDonald's biscuits and sodas in with us) and endured about 50 minutes of pre-movie advertisements and previews. Although I nearly fell asleep a couple of times, once the movie began I was literally on the edge of my seat. I don't know what the difference was....maybe Ron Howard (I always loved Opie), Brian Glazer and Tom Hanks actually took the time to sit in a screening room and analyze their errors in DaVinci, frame by frame...maybe because I hadn't read the book and had no frame of reference, maybe watching a movie at 10:30 in the morning is better than watching one at nearly midnite (when I saw DaVinci). I don't know but they certainly got this one right. From my daughter's comments, a lot of Dan Brown's transitional and descriptive pages were excluded...there was very little back story....Angels starts with a splash and doesn't stop for nearly three hours. I was exhausted by the time the lights came on and can't wait to go back for a second viewing.
I know a lot of people are going to complain that Robert Langdon solved the puzzles too easily or there were too many places where the viewer is asked to suspend reality or they don't like the leading lady (a lovely actress in my opinion) or there is too much religion or....on and on. But don't all movies and a lot of books ask us to suspend reality? If you are looking for a way to entertain yourself for 3 hours, consider Angels and Demons. It is well worth the price of a ticket, and even more worth the price of a ticket if you can, like we did get into the early bird special for $6/ticket.
And since my blog is about books, good books and what makes a book good, ask yourself how a great read can be an okay book but an okay book can be a great movie? Happy reading, happy viewing.
Angels and Demons however is a completely different story. I made a valiant effort to read the book, picking it up and putting it down at least half a dozen times and never finished it. My oldest daughter (probably the last in the family to actually read DaVinci) devoured Angels and designed a count-down calendar on her computer to the movie release date. So the three of us set our alarms, got to the theatre about 9:30a.m., DID NOT buy popcorn (we smuggled McDonald's biscuits and sodas in with us) and endured about 50 minutes of pre-movie advertisements and previews. Although I nearly fell asleep a couple of times, once the movie began I was literally on the edge of my seat. I don't know what the difference was....maybe Ron Howard (I always loved Opie), Brian Glazer and Tom Hanks actually took the time to sit in a screening room and analyze their errors in DaVinci, frame by frame...maybe because I hadn't read the book and had no frame of reference, maybe watching a movie at 10:30 in the morning is better than watching one at nearly midnite (when I saw DaVinci). I don't know but they certainly got this one right. From my daughter's comments, a lot of Dan Brown's transitional and descriptive pages were excluded...there was very little back story....Angels starts with a splash and doesn't stop for nearly three hours. I was exhausted by the time the lights came on and can't wait to go back for a second viewing.
I know a lot of people are going to complain that Robert Langdon solved the puzzles too easily or there were too many places where the viewer is asked to suspend reality or they don't like the leading lady (a lovely actress in my opinion) or there is too much religion or....on and on. But don't all movies and a lot of books ask us to suspend reality? If you are looking for a way to entertain yourself for 3 hours, consider Angels and Demons. It is well worth the price of a ticket, and even more worth the price of a ticket if you can, like we did get into the early bird special for $6/ticket.
And since my blog is about books, good books and what makes a book good, ask yourself how a great read can be an okay book but an okay book can be a great movie? Happy reading, happy viewing.
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