I will admit I am a fan of Dan Brown's books. I'm not the type of fan that treats them as non-fiction like some seem to do but more a fan of what they are, fiction. I've read the book, Angel & Demons, which I found entertaining. Not the best book I've ever read but a decent read. The ability to take real-life objects and locations and then weave a story around them is quite impressive regardless of your feelings of the story matter.

The movie was mostly a faithful translation of the book with a few changes here and there for unknown reasons which I'm sure made sense to the film crew. One major change is that the movie is a sequel to The DaVinci Code when in fact the book takes place before The DaVinci Code book. They swapped when they take place in relation to each other. But this doesn't really hurt the story as the previous "incident" is only slightly mentioned and really doesn't have much to do with what's going on.

Langdon is again called into action to solve a series of puzzles apparently set in place by men dead by centuries. Being the leading expert on symbology seems to be rather useful when dealing with old religions. Being somewhat familiar with their history, good and bad, seems helpful as well.

An old enemy of the Catholic Church, an enemy the Church actually created, has threatened to destroy the Vatican by means of a small chunk of anti-matter hidden somewhere in the city. The anti-matter is kept safe by a battery that is slowly draining, once the battery is done the anti-matter comes into contact with matter and boom!

This happens during the time that the Pope has died and a new one is to be elected. The four popular candidates have been kidnapped and are being used as part of the revenge scheme.

The story is kind of predictable in how things turn out with a surprise or two in there. But overall it's a decent watch.

Personally I find The DaVinci Code a little more interesting as it delved into history a bit more and the scenes of what the buildings looked like in years past were fun. This movie had us running around Vatican City and the outskirts but didn't delve much into the history and significance of the locations. There was a time-limit and the movie rushed through to maintain the sense of urgency of that deadline.

I actually liked that they downplayed the involvement of CERN as I found the book not very credible nor interesting in that aspect. In the movie it was a minor part and the story was better for it.

If you liked The DaVinci Code then chances are you'll like this one. Especially since Tom Hanks reprises his role and continues to show he was an excellent choice for the part.

Thankfully this movie did get the same amount of controversy as The DaVinci Code as I always felt it was unnecessary. It's just historically based fiction after all.