14 DAY TRIAL // The 2006 “The Da Vinci Code,” starring Tom Hanks, fared incredibly well at the box-office, having first managed to create quite a controversy and upset all the important players at the Vatican with the topic approached. Three years later, Hanks returns in the sequel, also based on a Dan Brown book, “Angels & Demons,” but star Stellan Skarsgard says, if anything, Brown should not have gotten into the business of writing.
According to the actor, Brown is not a good writer. As a matter of fact, he’s so terrible at what he does that he only accepted the part in “Angels & Demons” after reading the movie script, meaning, after several considerable modifications had been made to the plot. The star also compares Brown’s writings to peanuts, a snack many people eat without even liking, simply because they can’t seem to be able to stop.
“I think Dan Brown is a terribly bad writer, but he has cliffhangers after every chapter which makes you continue reading.” Skarsgard said for Swedish broadcaster SVT, as cited by USA Today. “It’s like eating peanuts at a bar. You don’t like them, but you keep on eating them anyway.” he added. Still, the actor insists “Angels & Demons” is much better than the first film because it has a much simpler plotline, while also being more dramatic.
In all fairness, critics have welcomed “Angels & Demons” much more warmly than they have “The Da Vinci Code.” They still argue, though, that director Ron Howard, albeit a brilliant craftsman who knows how to build a scene to really cause an impression, needs to understand that any movie labeled as a “thriller” must have thrills no matter what, which is far from the case with “Angels & Demons,” of which many say it might prove a tad too “boring.”
However, since enjoying it could prove to be just a matter of taste in the end, fans are urged to see the film regardless of negative or positive reviews. “Angels & Demons” is already running in several European countries, and it drops in US theaters today. As regards the earlier mentioned campaign against it carried out by the Vatican, just recently, it was revealed that the Vatican had reviewed the film and found it “innocent.”