The Vatican doesn’t like Dan Brown. It decried his The Da Vinci Code, of course, because it suggested Jesus was married and had kids.The latest Brown book to be filmed is Angels and Demons, which also features Tom Hanks (pictured) as a Harvard professor, Robert Langdon, who this time is in a race against time to save the Vatican from an antimatter bomb.
I’ve read the book. It’s so-so, not brilliant. Brown comes in for a lot of flak, but the book will at least keep you reading. I think I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code better, but, then, it had a more complex plot and pottered with history. I haven’t seen either film, yet, though, so can’t speak for them.
Anyway, according to the Daily Telegraph (among others, no doubt), the Vatican is calling on Catholics to boycott it.
Which means it’ll be a huge box-office hit.
I’m amused by this line in the Telegraph story: “Avvenire, the Vatican’s official newspaper, says in its latest edition that the church ‘cannot approve’ of the film.”
Er, since when did anyone need Vatican approval to watch a film? And, anyway, most of the book seems respectful of the Vatican and its institutions, as far as I recall (although there’s a passage in it about the murder of a 20th-century pope, but I won’t give anything away).
