Angels & Demons:
Unlike most of the world, I actually read this before reading The Da Vinci Code. I hadn’t heard of it prior to the explosion of The Da Vinci Code, but I have this habit of wanting to read series/characters from the beginning, so I read Angels & Demons first. I also liked it more than its sequel. I felt the story was tighter, the characters more interesting, and just all around a better book. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying The Da Vinci Code sucked, but it just wasn’t as good.
The movie of The Da Vinci Code was worse than the book. Given that I liked the book Angels & Demons more, I’m hoping to like the movie more, but seeing as how the movie will be treated as a sequel and not properly as a prequel, I know there will be things about the film that annoy me. However, after my disappointment with the prior film, I do know that I won’t be rushing to the theater to see this one. I’ll wait for the DVD.
I think the problem is reading the books before the movie is releases. I enjoyed the first movie because I didn’t read the book until afterwards, and even then, it wasn’t too far off from the movie. This time, I managed to read a little bit of the book, sadly I never got around to finishing it, but still I am disappointed in the movie because it fell way short of what was in the book. So, if your using the book as a guide line for enjoying the movie, I would definitely skip the movie this time around.
You should finish the book.
Normally I do try to see movies first, but this was one of those cases where everyone was raving about The Da Vinci Code book so much that I felt compelled to read it even before news of the movie appeared. And in my effort to do things right, I read the prequel first.
With the first movie, what actually bothered me the most was the depiction of the puzzle solving, with glowing symbols and whatnot. Totally broke me out of the experience and made me feel like the director was telling the audience “You are too stupid for us to just hint and say things, so I’m just going to show you.” It just seemed like a crutch they didn’t need.