Disphoria … (or, why I hated this movie)

I saw Angels & Demons last night.  Do NOT read on if you don’t want to know…

I love this book.  I totally prefer it over The da Vinci Code for so many reasons.  I think the story is better, even more ‘believable’.

However, I think the movie was far enough removed from the book to suck.

They wrote out several characters:-

1. Max Kholer
2. the BBC reporters

They changed several characters:-

1. Leonardo Vettra was “Sylvio” and not Vittoria’s adopted father
2. Olivetti was not in the Swiss Guard, but some “Vatican Police” force
3. Rocher is now “Richter” and not in Swiss Guard uniform
4. Moriati is now “Strauss” and a bit of an a-hole
5. Some lower level ‘cardinal’ (I don’t know what the purple ones are) is now there picking up some slack from the lack of Max and the movement of “Richter”
6. The camerlengo is no longer Italian, OR the actual son of the Pope and a Nun “maria”, but is only adopted.

MAJOR story points that have changed.

1. There is a full research team involved with the LHC, rather than just Leonardo and Vittoria, leads to not as hard to figure out that info could leak out
2. Vittoria is onhand and actually finds the body, rather than the whole Max Kholer story.  Which also rules out future parts of the story
3. Langdon never goes to CERN in the cool jet or sees any of the awesome that is there.
4. “Sylvio” is not branded with the Illuminati ambigram, NOR is there the “Illuminati diamond” ambigram.. I can’t tell you how much this pissed me off
5. The “Hassassin” is not a culturally born killer, nor a sexual deviot.  He’s just a ‘hired gun’ .. SO not as much fun.  He also doesn’t get killed by falling off a high balcony.. because… VITTORIA DOESN’T GET KIDNAPPED!!!  GUH.
6. Langdon doesn’t go up in the helicopter.  And you see the camerlengo parachuting.  WRONG WRONG WRONG .. the camerlengo appearing on top of the vatican is supposed to be seen as a miracle.  When Langdon shows up in the chapel, it’s meant to start to ‘undo’ the camerlengo’s story.
7. No Max = no camcorder, so they replaced it with surveyance equipment that is monitored by “Richter” .. not too bad.. for a patch up
8. This is the one that probably upsets me most.  There is no love story.  Langdon and Vittoria are supposed to get all hot and steamy for each other due to being thrown into a stressful situation together.. No end of movie sex.  Suckage.

There are more ‘little’ things.  But these are the big ones that just rattled my chains last night.

Completely unimpressed with how they chopped this movie up.  At least da Vinci Code was watchable after the book.

IMO, if you love the book, don’t bother.