Angels & Demons - Review Thread

[WriteSimply]

As always, be proficient with your spoiler tags. PLEASE do not let this thread be infused by religious discussion as this is about the movie and not the "side topic".

It has a nice balance of action and dialogue. The mystery itself is exciting and thrilling. The film feels smooth and fast in its unfolding. Ron Howard impresses with his artistic and technical choices. Rome and the Vatican both real and CGI look very good (the epic and impossible camera moves gives it away).

There's a whole lot of exposition that flies in front of your face that you almost can't keep up. This is why Tom Hanks is a great actor for this role. He makes it FLY. The rest of the cast is impressive too, including Favino, Skarsgård, Zurer, Lindhardt, McGregor and Mueller-Stahl.

Kudos to the art design, set design, costume and prop department. It makes the entire thing very believable. Sound design is pretty impressive too. The score is great with a lot of choral arrangement to heighten the tension and mood.

You get to see a visualization of how the Super Large Hadron Collider works. Pretty cool.

Running time: Approximately 2:24.

--- It was supposed to be a digital presentation. But once it started, I started noticing flecks and scratches. When the subtitles came on (Malaysia has mandatory subs but audio is always original) I knew that it was not a digital presentation. Then it came time for a reel change and they switched to the digital presentation. Basically the local distributor - Sony Pictures - want to impress us with the digital version as this is the first time a 2D digital presentation is made here. Hence the APPROXIMATE running time because the switch was not seamless.

So eventually I did get to see the digital presentation. Vast difference in color (this is due film stock versus non-fade data), focus and sharpness (film wavers as it enters the gate vs the static 2K DLP chip), and LOSSLESS SOUND. If you want to know how your BD looks like using a HD projector, watch the digital presentation if you can.


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