chasman99

I absolutely loved Shaun of the Dead and when I saw this movie was coming out I was just crazy to see it. Finally the DVD arrives in the mail and I sat with eager anticipation for another nearly 2 hours or dry wit and humor from the boys.

The premise itself is a little far fetched and does lend itself for an over the top comedy just like Shaun did. The problem is that Shaun was perfectly set up with the zombie portion to require gore and over the top blood splatter. In this movie, there are so many scenes of people getting things blown up, smashed to a pulp or cracked open that the blood becomes a second supporting actor. While that makes sense with zombies, it sure doesn't fit with a small town group of old cronies.

Now the ending is fantastic with massive amounts of bullets being fired, but it does drag on a bit long and the gags are a little too obvious to score as big surprises. Simon Pegg was good, but he was so serious it was hard to squeeze humor out of his character. If you want Shaun of the Dead humor, please, just pop Shaun of the Dead into the DVD player and forget this one. It'll disappoint for sure.

Not a lot to be said about the movie, you know what you are getting into. I have to say it was entertaining having read the "Code" book and seen that movie. The parody was pulled off really well and some of the writing was pretty decent. All in all, a pretty entertaining movie for an adult feature. Better than almost everything else I have seen in recent years. I'd recommend it.

The sex scenes were fairly straight forward. The only group action was all women, at the end of the movie. I found it a little odd that the "prioress" and some of the members were not included in the movie up until this final scene, but that is hardly something you can be too picky about.

And now for something completely new…a review about the movie instead of the conflict it created.

First off, I did read the book. I found the casting a bit questionable but as is generally the case, minutia gets lost the further in your memory it is. I read the book quite some time ago, so the glaring mistakes were missed to some degree.

I watched the movie with my wife and she had never read the book. It was enjoyable for both of us.

The good: The topic in and of itself keeps you thinking throughout, if not on the actual action in the movie, on your own religious musings. The casting was pretty darn good actually. Sadly all the supporting characters were overshadowed by the one mistake Howard made in putting Hanks in the lead. It was just too difficult to get past for anyone who had a preconceived notion of who Langdon should have been (Ralph Fiennes or Hugh Laurie for me…) The pace of the movie was good, and I did not feel that it dragged at all.

The bad: There were too many times you could poke a hole in the material. Again, this is not a critique of the content but a comment based on your ability to find holes independently of the subject matter. I also didn't feel the final few scenes tied things together very well. There was too much intellectual blather and you didn't feel a major emotional attachment between Sophie and her grandmother. That needed to be developed or you still felt "can she trust these people?" at the end of the movie.

I think the twists and turns were faithfully reproduced, but it did not wrap up nicely. For perfect wrap up see "The Usual Suspects". I wanted something along those lines…where after the finale I was glad to see how it came together, somewhat surprised and very happy for the come-uppance of the antagonists.

All in all I think this was a good depiction of the book, given the limited time you have to do so. I look forward to Angels and Demons more as I think the story is tighter, at least until the finale, which I imagine, will be laughable at the theater.

If you liked the book, go see the movie. If you did not read the book, but it intrigues you, go see the movie. If you are consumed with the conflicts in subject matter and the inconsistencies with the details in art, placement and historical fact…either don't go, or keep it to yourself. I wish to watch in blissful ignorance thanks