The Pope is dead and to elect the new Holy Father, the ancient ritual of the Conclave is set to begin when the four Cardinals most likely to be chosen, the preferiti, are kidnapped. An ancient brotherhood known as the Illuminati takes responsibility. They have no demands and only wish to teach the Church a lesson for a violent purging of their scientific “free thinkers” hundreds of years ago and to do that they have promised to violently kill one Cardinal an hour, each in a different location, with the grand finale being the complete destruction of Vatican City with an anti-matter bomb stolen in the film’s opening scene.

The only clues offered that might save the day are also meant to further the Illuminati’s pro-science stance. Each clue is based on the four altars of science: earth, air, wind, and fire and to help unravel these symbols, Harvard Professor Robert Langdon is called in. Joining him is Vittorio Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), the gorgeous Italian scientist who helped create the anti-matter and the best hope to disarm it.

Before the story even has a chance to get going, “Angels & Demons” seals its fate as an episodic snoozer. For the first forty minutes, using awkward asides and clumsy exposition, the Langdon character uses every opportunity (and creates a few of his own) to chastise the Catholic Church for its historical secrecy, hatred of modern art, book burning, anti-science posture and a violent past borne of intolerance and fear of truth. Now, I’m no historian, so all of this might carry some credibility (or not), but I also understand that another word for Leftist Kryptonite is “context” and that never once is the overwhelming good the church does given a hearing (other than a single sentence tossed off by an unsympathetic character). The result of this relentless demonizing is to completely undermine the story’s tension and suspense. In other words: Why should we care whether or not this horrible institution survives? This may be the first mainstream Hollywood thriller where our protagonist isn’t racing to save something worth saving.

Make no mistake, the filmmakers here are smart professionals who have been around a while and who fully understand that in order to tell a compelling story the audience must be emotionally invested in the outcome. Unfortunately, with their relentless stream of (at best) out-of-context Catholic bigotry, they’ve made the conscious choice to undermine our sympathizing with the very institution in danger, and this is done at the expense of telling what could have been a much stronger story. You might as well make a film with someone in a race against time to save Charles Manson.

To qualify “Angels & Demons” as a movie would be naïve in the extreme. What we have here is a big, clumsy cannonball in the culture war launched, not by filmmakers, but by ideological warriors who know how to use film.

But even if Howard and company had wanted to tell the best story they could, A&D would still have its problems. Having one Cardinal executed each hour in the grisliest of fashions with the promise of a big boom to top it all off may sound like the perfect way to structure a thriller, but Harvard Symbologists are a long way from Indiana Jones.

Hanks must have been bored stiff.  Langdon is all about the wash – rinse — repeat, but it goes like this: Puzzle to solve — furrow brow — light comes to eyes — point somewhere with authority – speak in academic tongues – dash off screen-left – jump in car – drive through ridiculously busy streets but still arrive barely in time in a way only Jack Bauer could relate to. But to the hero of “24’s” credit, with only an hour between murders, he’s never stopped to wash up, change clothes, enjoy a refreshing cup of coffee and chat up the help like Langdon does in a truly surreal moment.

As far as the most awkward moments, it’s hard to choose between the awkward stem cell debate between protesters the camera thrusts us into or the awkward shoe-horned shot at the energy industry near the film’s end.  There might have been PETA posters on the Vatican walls but Howard likes his cinematography dark, so it was hard to tell.

Too much of the suspense is as contrived as these political moments trying to disguise themselves as a theme. Langdon’s a College Professor, Vetra’s a scientist, and yet the Vatican police sure do leave them alone in the most dangerous of circumstances an awful lot. But even then you never feel Langdon’s in any real danger. I counted at least three times where the killer could’ve easily offed him and didn’t.

For a PG-13 film, A&D is loaded with a surprising amount of graphic violence and the performances vary. Armin Mueller-Stahl comes off best as a senior Cardinal whose motives remain in doubt until the very end, Ewan McGregor enjoys some good moments until a preposterous climax undoes all his good work, Hanks is Hanks, and the fetching Zurer just doesn’t have a whole lot to do.

Big movie. Big stars. Hard to stay away. I get that. But if you remember that “Angels & Demons” wasn’t conceived with the goal of telling the best story possible, you won’t be as disappointed.

Two appealing stars in the form of Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, enough exotic locations for two James Bond films and one very well staged shoot out in the Guggenheim museum just isn’t enough to cut through a confusing, lifeless plot and lack of spark between the two leads.  Let me then suggest a second screening of “Taken” for your weekend viewing pleasure.

Owen plays Louis Salinger, an Interpol agent obsessed with taking down the International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC), a multi-national corporation hip deep in arms dealing, specifically in third world countries where it hopes to gain political influence through the holding of debt. One of Salinger’s few allies is Eleanor (Watts), who works out of the District Attorney’s office in Manhattan where IBBC’s main money laundering branch is located.

Eleanor is happily married with a child, Salinger’s single, rough, a little haunted, and very alone. What they do share is a commitment to bring down IBBC and a suspicion that all the discouragement thrown their way by their superiors might be further proof of that institution’s enormous power and influence.

After a colleague is assassinated during an attempt to turn an IBBC executive  into an informant, Salinger and Eleanor follow a series of clues to a former East German Stasi agent Wilhelm Wexler (Armin Mueller-Stahl), and the bank’s stand-by assassin for hire, Jonas (Ulrich Thomsen).They hope to turn one or the other into an informant in order to build a case they can prosecute, but each step forward only seems to lead to an even bigger hornet’s nest of killers and dead ends.

Unfortunately, the whole ordeal of sitting through the film is a dead end. Any chance at a lively, pulse-pounder is cut off at the knees even before it begins because the antagonist is a bank building and there are absolutely no stakes. Were the IBBC baddies up to something in particular that was destined to bring some kind of chaos down on the world, that would be one thing, but they aren’t. So the stakes are that if IBBC isn’t stopped The World Will Stay Exactly As It Is Now.

There’s no ticking clock, no master plan in need of foiling, which means there’s no tension whatsoever. Also lacking is a place for the Naomi Watts’ character. Other than an exposition extraction device so we can learn about Salinger’s uninteresting and clichéd history, she awkwardly jumps in and out of the story without any central purpose.

And this is a shame. Watts is an outstanding actress and I had hoped she’d spark with Owen. But for whatever mad reason, the script refuses to let even a hint of romantic or sexual tension into the relationship. Through no fault of these two fine actors, chemistry simply isn’t allowed. The relationship is built on a respect that borders on clinical and crosses over into dull.

The only actor given a memorable moment is Mueller-Stahl (working again with Watts after last year’s far superior “Eastern Promises“) as a former Commie turned capitalist baddie who feels his age and is starting to regret where the choices of his long life might finally place him at death. Give a fine actor like this some good dialogue and you can’t go wrong.

A lot of effort went into the look and design of “The International.” Every location, like the Guggenheim, is an architectural wonder. This is a beautiful film to look at, just not very much fun to watch.