'Angels and Demons' tops takings on science and religion theme

Angels and Demons" - the sequel to the 2006 blockbuster movie "The Da Vinci Code" - opened in 96 countries over the weekend and claimed top spot in North America with US$48-million in ticket sales and US$104-million in other ticket sales worldwide.

Both films are based on books by Dan Brown. "The Da Vinci Code" earned more than US$753 million worldwide, but raised the ire of many Christians who accused the movie of slandering the Church.

After a 7 May screening of "Angels and Demons" in Rome, however, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano praised director Ron Howard's technical skill, and said the "reconstruction of the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica were magnificent". Still, it summarized the film as "two hours of harmless entertainment that has little to do with the genius and mystery of Christianity, without getting beyond the usual stereotypes".

Like the earlier film, "Angels and Demons" revolves around the activities of Harvard professor Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks) and a centuries-old plot at the heart of the Church.

In "The Da Vinci Code", Langdon uncovered a conspiracy to cover up the knowledge that the Holy Grail was not the cup of Christ but rather the woman with whom Jesus is portrayed marrying and with whom he has children. 

In "Angels and Demons," Vatican officials fly Langdon to Rome, where the Pope has just died and four cardinals seen as among his possible replacements have been kidnapped. Langdon discovers a plot against the Vatican engineered by the Illuminati, a secret society going back to the Enlightenment era that has kidnapped the cardinals and plans to blow up the Vatican as retribution for violent attacks against its members.

Langdon is paired with an Italian physicist (Ayelet Zurer), and together they have 24 hours to save the Vatican from a bomb created with anti-matter stolen from CERN, the world's largest particle physics laboratory in Geneva. With this element, the plot has been accused of continuing a science-against-religion theme, and refers to anti-matter as "the God matter", the element that brought about creation.

"'Angels and Demons' avoids some of the most powerful emotional parts of the book as well as some of the anti-Christian, anti-Catholic speeches and adds some positive Christian content, but retains the book's revisionist history and prevailing smearing of Christianity through false information," stated a review posted on the Web site www.movieguide.org, which says it can offer an in-depth analysis of movies, "from a biblical perspective".