Monday, April 27, 2009

Angels & Demons - Here we go again

Science and Religion seems to be at the core of this hallucination. Dan Brown and Ron Howard's new movie Angels and Demons is soon to hit the local theaters on May 15th.

Already the bookstores are dedicating major displays (shrines) to the Brown classics.

Anyway, Carl Olsen of InsightScoop did a marvelous job of debunking the Da Vinci Code. He has a new post on the upcoming Angels and Demons release, which he does an equally fabulous job.

Where Angels (& Demons) Fear to Tread

The astounding success of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown’s fourth novel, first published in the spring of 2003, is well known. The numbers are incredible: Over 60 million copies of the controversial novel have sold worldwide, in over 40 languages, with millions of copies of Brown’s previous three novels following fast in the wake of its success. A major motion picture was released in May 2006, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard. It grossed over $240 million in the United States and nearly $760 million worldwide, making it the 26th most profitable movie of all time, ahead of such films as Forrest Gump, The Sixth Sense, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Brown, Howard, and Hanks are now back, this time with the sequel (actually a prequel) to The Da Vinci Code. Angels & Demons, based on Brown’s second novel, which was published in 2000, opens in theaters on May 15 and is expected to be one of the top-grossing films of the year. It also figures to be controversial. The film features the return of Robert Langdon, the Harvard “symbologist” who revealed the alleged fact that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had descendents. It focuses on the Catholic Church and the election of a (fictional) pope, and pontificates—so to speak—on the relationship between science and religion.Despite The Da Vinci Code movie’s worldwide commercial success, it was generally panned by critics, who complained that the movie was clumsy, plodding, and confusing. Some understood this was because the movie followed the book so faithfully. Apparently the producers came to the same realization. “I think we may have been too reverential toward it,” producer Brian Grazer told USA Today in October 2008. “We got all the facts of the book right, but the movie was a little long and stagey.” He promised that Angels & Demons will be different. “Langdon doesn’t stop and give a speech,” Grazer said, “When he speaks, he’s in motion.”
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