Angels & Demons: Critic Reviews

87%

MovieWeb: 18 reviews

36%

RottenTomatoes: 241 reviews

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Julian Roman MovieWeb (Top Critic)

60

Too many astonishingly obscure variables fall into place for this film to be believed.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Lisa Schwarzbaum Entertainment Weekly (Top Critic)

59

Angels & Demons barrels along with a confidence -- and, more fundamentally, a pulse -- missing from director Ron Howard's first encounter with the best-selling novels of Dan Brown.
Full Review » 3 years ago
A.O. Scott New York Times (Top Critic)

50

Angels & Demons, without being particularly good, is nonetheless far less hysterical than The Da Vinci Code.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Xan Brooks Guardian [UK] (Top Critic)

40

If the film is never quite as inert as The Da Vinci Code, I hesitate to call this a thriller. It's big, bombastic and glossy - but it is also stiff and sometimes ludicrous.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Claudia Puig USA Today (Top Critic)

50

Angels & Demons is better, though not by much, than 2006's Da Vinci Code. The story, however, is less interesting and even more far-fetched.
Full Review » 3 years ago
John Anderson Washington Post (Top Critic)

What the movie is supposed to accomplish -- laying out a fairly complex mystery in a way that creates suspense -- is precisely what it doesn't do.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Wesley Morris Boston Globe (Top Critic)

50

Howard simply isn't as good a filmmaker as Brown is a blissfully terrible writer.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Ella Taylor Village Voice (Top Critic)

The movie clips along, tricked out with state-of-the-art hardware and a hotter, brighter partner for Hanks.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Elizabeth Weitzman New York Daily News (Top Critic)

60

You won't remember many of the stops after the movie ends, but at least you'll enjoy the ride.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Joe Morgenstern Wall Street Journal (Top Critic)

An odd kind of a slog that manages to keep you partially engaged, even at its most esoteric or absurd, despite an endlessly excitable choir and Hans Zimmer's pitiless score.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Amy Biancolli Houston Chronicle (Top Critic)

50

It's too lurid, too long. Too much is telegraphed.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Tom Maurstad Dallas Morning News (Top Critic)

34

Saying that Angels & Demons is a lot better than its predecessor, The Da Vinci Code, is like saying that this swine flu outbreak isn't nearly as bad as the last.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Lisa Kennedy Denver Post (Top Critic)

50

Howard seems to count on audience goodwill toward Hanks carrying over to Langdon, filling in the hero's many blanks.
Full Review » 3 years ago
James Rocchi MSN Movies (Top Critic)

60

A slick, speedy thriller that cuts between mystery and murder at an agreeable enough tempo to make two hours go by.
Full Review » 3 years ago
David Edelstein New York Magazine (Top Critic)

The streets of Rome haven't run this red since the Inquisition.
Full Review » 3 years ago
David Denby New Yorker (Top Critic)

If these movies made any damned sense, the public response might be no more than a yawn.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times (Top Critic)

75

This kind of film requires us to be very forgiving, and if we are, it promises to entertain. Angels & Demons succeeds.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune (Top Critic)

38

At one point Hanks can be glimpsed gasping for air, mid-endless-sentence. Has there ever been a flatter movie character played by a more innately likable star?
Full Review » 3 years ago
Andrea Gronvall Chicago Reader (Top Critic)

A movie that's more streamlined and action-packed than the original.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Carrie Rickey Philadelphia Inquirer (Top Critic)

63

Howard's fluid camera movement, Salvatore Totino's old master-ly cinematography, and the Gregorian rants of Hans Zimmer's score cannot redeem the Hardy Boys plotting of Dan Brown's source material.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Colin Covert Minneapolis Star Tribune (Top Critic)

50

Even though the sluggish Da Vinci Code is an easy act to follow. There's not a moment of inspiration on display here, but ample craft and professional technique.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Tom Long Detroit News (Top Critic)

34

[It's] not anti-Catholic. It is, however, anti-exciting, anti-sense and anti-involving.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Bill Goodykoontz Arizona Republic (Top Critic)

60

Credit where it's due: Director Ron Howard, also back from Da Vinci, keeps things moving fast enough -- the clock is ticking, after all -- that you don't linger over the implausibility of the story.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Kyle Smith New York Post (Top Critic)

63

Angels & Demons has some exciting sequences, a spectacular ending with a terrific twist and a grounding in the debate about science versus religion that could hardly be more timely.
Full Review » 3 years ago
Roger Moore Orlando Sentinel (Top Critic)

60

It's doesn't quite pay off, but Angels & Demons does a much better job of balancing the blasphemy and blood, heresy and heroics that were Brown's ticket to eternal wealth if not eternal life.
Full Review » 3 years ago