We went to see the movie Angels and Demons that I have been looking forward to seeing since early of last year. Frankly I have been holding an expectation to see a better product than its brother “Da Vinci Code”. I even had my own casting team in mind for every characters, but having the previous experience, I was very much prepared to get disappointed.

To me, the only difference between these two stories is that I read the book before I see the movie for Angels and Demons, while it was another way around for Da Vinci Code. I know some people are religiously against doing the both. They choose either reading the book or going to see the movie. I am easy, but I think if I ever had the choice, I would rather seeing the movie than reading the book……yes, I like quick fix

However, I can see the point. Books make greater impression on their audiences. Nobody would get the same satisfaction from both the book and the movie. It’s doomed to fail on one thing and most of time it’s the movie who suffers.

Lots of people say Angels and Demons is much better, comparing to its ill-yielded brother Da Vinci Code. It’s at least a decent action thriller, fast pacing and has all the classic elements in one package.

Maybe they are right, but I kind of felt that there is something missing. It doesn’t have the same sort of touch as the book has. The character of that director of the Switzerland Science Base had been totally erased from the movie. Victoria seems to play a very minor and unimportant female role compensating the men’s world but nothing else. Her emotions around her father’s murder, the mixed feelings towards their exploration around anti-matters, her knowledge, wisdom and good eyes for scientific matters and her lovely personalities just doesn’t show in the movie at all.

While our Professor Robbie, like a running chook, heading from one place to another, but doesn’t seem to have the depth of the intelligence that he’s supposed to have. However I admit that he looks much smarter than he did in Da Vinci Code, but apart from his enthusiasm towards getting the access to the Vatican Archives, he wasn’t any brighter than local people in that movie.

Another thing is, we wondered if people who has never read the book would understand any bits of the movie. It’s more like a chasing game made up with different criminal scenes than revealing the real mystery behind an extreme complicated world of history, politics, religions, myths, culture and even geographic elements.

But guess what? I don’t really blame the director. Because I believe that no matter what he does, it just won’t make any difference. Some books are just not suitable to be adapted into movies. I suppose that Angels and Demons (or Da Vinci Code) is one of them.