Review of Angels & Demons (2009) by Chads — 16 May 2009

Crash Test Dummies' Dan Roberts wrote a stunning pro-evolution song called "In the Days of the Cavemen"(from the album "God Shuffled His Feet"), in which the concept of a palimpsest is communicated in the chorus: "See in the shapes of my body/leftover parts from the apes and monkeys" was the key couplet.

One of those parts is the appendix. It's a useless organ to homosapiens, but way back when our ape cousins were "foraging the forests like a primate," the appendix was utilized for the digestion of raw meat.

A sort of palimpsest is suggested in John Turtletaub's "National Treasure", a "DaVinci Code" knockoff, when Ben Gates(Nicholas Cage) uncovers a treasure map underneath the Constitution(to be a true palimpsest, the map had to be written beneath the existing parchment).

Under everybody's noses, this seemingly goofy follow-the-clues, almost Dadaist romp, in retrospect, might have been commenting on the Dan Brown novel. Using the palimpsest as metaphor, "National Treasure" seems more pro-science than "Angels and Demons".

To better illuminate the Illuminati's platform, replacing the generic exchanges(humor-free and personality-free) between Robert(Tom Hanks) and Vittoria(Ayelet Zurer) with shop talk about the Big Bang Theory and evolution, might have helped offset the obligatory scenes of action.

"Angels and Demons" is a film without rhetoric, which is curious, since its themes are nothing but rhetorical. Understandably, many lives are in jeopardy, so it's not the time or place for the academician to debate the merits of science over religion with the Vatican.

But with his colleague, among themselves, for the sake of exposition, the two scholars should have given the intelligent design proponents something to talk about, and mount an argument for science instead of banally commenting on the insipid clues that the story forces them to follow.

The film's brief mention about stem cell research from two protestors on opposing faction is more stimulating than anything in this popular entertainment, which doesn't possess the intestinal fortitude to really fluster either side of the God issue.