Tom Hanks returns in Angels and Demons

May 8 2009 by Kate Whiting, The Journal

landscape: angels and demons tom hanks(PA: DO NOT REUSE)

WHEN you’re sitting inside a vast wooden globe at the foot of a mountain range waiting for Tom Hanks to appear, you know something special’s about to happen.

This secretive location is worthy of a Dan Brown mystery novel and that’s exactly why we’re here.

The globe, at the heart of the enormous particle physics laboratory CERN, has been carefully chosen for a screening of some tantalising clips from Angels & Demons, director Ron Howard’s follow-up to The Da Vinci Code.

Hanks is back as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, again called upon to solve a chilling murder case at the hands of ancient dark forces.

After a spine-tingling eight minutes of footage, the actor and director emerge from a concealed hideout in the domed roof, walk down a ramp and seat themselves before the gathered media.

Hanks, dapper in dark blue, is in jovial mood and quick to explain why he couldn’t resist playing the tweed and Mickey Mouse watch-wearing Langdon again.

“I’m not going to give up on this gig, it’s an awfully good job. I’m not going to hand it over to someone else – I’m not stoopid!” he says, flashing his famous cheeky grin.

In the year that we’re celebrating the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth, it’s a coincidence that Angels & Demons focuses on the age-old debate between science and religion.

Dan Brown’s story opens with the discovery at CERN of a murdered physicist who has been branded with an ancient symbol, thought to be that of the Illuminati.

A canister of deadly antimatter has been stolen from the laboratory and now lies, like a ticking bomb, deep beneath Vatican City in Rome, just as Conclave – the selection of a new Pope – is about to begin.

The Illuminati was a secret society founded in Bavaria in 1776, with members spread throughout government, science and the arts.

Many believe the society dates back even further, to the 1500s, and came about to counter the Church’s scientific thinking at the time.

In Angels & Demons, these Enlightened Ones were driven underground and disappeared more than 100 years ago, becoming fiercely anti-Vatican.

Conspiracy theorists believe the Illuminati still exist and are engineering events across the globe to create a New World Order.

Against this background, Illuminati expert Langdon is summoned to Rome, where he meets beautiful scientist Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer).

The two set off on a high-octane chase across the Italian capital, following the 400-year-old Path of Illumination, to stop the Vatican literally being destroyed by science.

Double Oscar winner Hanks, 52, reveals it was questions about science and religion that drew him to the script.

“When I go to church, and I do, I ponder the mystery. I meditate on the ‘why’. Why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.”

Angels & Demons marks Howard and Hanks’s fourth collaboration since mermaid romcom Splash in 1984.

Dan Brown is set to release a new adventure for him in September, although the subject matter is a closely-guarded secret.

Hanks turns to Howard and asks: “Is it true the next one is set in Disneyland so there’s finally a reason for that Mickey Mouse watch?”

* Angels & Demons is released in cinemas next week. Read a review in next Friday’s Culture pages.