You think they would’ve learned their lesson. For all of the book’s massive success, The Da Vinci Code movie managed to be both over-wrought and boring. So what made Ron Howard, Tom Hanks and co. think they could do any better with Dan Brown’s less beloved Angels & Demons?The problems are roughly the same: Hanks’ character, symbologist Robert Langdon, is a dud. He is defined by three things: Improbable bravery (for a symbologist), expert knowledge of religious iconography, and a skepticism about religion in general. He’s not really a character, he’s a cipher: But lead characters in movies need distinguishing personalities: Brown (and now Ron Howard) can’t even be bothered to give Langdon a nervous tic, a bad habit, hell, a fondness for show tunes.Also, books can be filled with an air of academic authority that allow us to buy even the more far-fetched aspects of the plot. But when a book is reduced to all plot, we tend to pick up on how silly it really is.Last time we saw Langdon, he was getting to the bottom of no less than the secret relationship between Mary Magdalene and Christ. Now he’s been summoned to the Vatican where the Pope has died suddenly and the four bishops most likely to succeed him have been kidnapped, allegedly by a long-dormant group of rational thinkers called The Illuminati. The kidnappers also have gotten their hands on some combustible anti-matter and they are threatening to kill one bishop every hour and then blow the Vatican to kingdom come.Langdon is aided by the über-hot nuclear physicist (Ayelet Zurer) who created the anti-matter, the twitchy head of the Swiss Guard (Stellan Skarsgärd), and the Pope’s assistant (Ewan McGregor.) Also on hand, looking glum, Armin Mueller-Stahl as the bishop who stands the most to gain from the kidnappings.Angels & Demons is not as ridiculous as The Da Vinci Code—remember Paul Bettany’s self-flagellating albino monk?—although its plot machinations are far-fetched. (The convenient background of McGregor’s young priest is a particular doozy.) Also, like The Da Vinci Code, it’s quite talky—there’s simply no way to advance the plot without having Langdon explain the origins of the Illuminati and the significance of various ancient seals and Galileo’s role in the mystery and directional thrust of one particular pentagram, and so on.Howard is, of course, a skilled director and he uses the beat-the-clock aspect of saving the bishops and avoiding Vatican road kill to great affect. The rarefied air of the Vatican and its ancient churches comes to life quite vividly. And we get a fascinating glimpse at the inner sanctums of the church—I assume there really is a vintage Mercedes stored among the priceless tomes of the Vatican archives. If so, cool. This is the kind of winking commentary that the film could’ve used a lot more of.I hate to think that Howard and Hanks are only in it for the money, but I can’t figure out any other reason why they’d take on this thankless project. Some books simply aren’t meant to be turned into movies. So far, with The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, we’re two for two.