Angels & Demons(2009)

Plot Summary

• The Catholic Church mourns the sudden death of Pope Pius XVI, and prepares for the papal conclave to elect his successor in Vatican City. Father Patrick McKenna, the Camerlengo, temporarily controls the Vatican during the seed vacant period. Meanwhile at CERN, scientists Father Silvano Bentivoglio and Dr. Vittoria Vetra create three canisters of antimatter. As Vetra goes to evaluate the experiment, she discovers that Silvano has been murdered, and one canister stolen. Shortly thereafter, four of the preferred, the favored candidates to be elected pope, are kidnapped by a man claiming to represent the Illuminati. He sends the Vatican a warning, claiming he will murder each of the cardinals, one every hour, from 8 p.m. to midnight, when the stolen antimatter, hidden somewhere within the city, will explode and destroy it.Due to his involvement with the Priory of Sion in Paris and London (as depicted in The Da Vinci Code), American symbolized Professor Robert Langdon is brought to the Vatican by Claudio Vicenzi to help. After listening to the assassin's threat, he deduces that the four cardinals will be murdered on the four altars of the "Path of Illumination", in locations relevant to the classical elements. McKenna gives Langdon access to the Vatican Secret Archives to research the altars, against the wishes of Commander Richter, head of the Swiss Guard. Langdon and Dr. Vetra examine Galileo Galilei's banned book, finding clues to the first altar. Initially believing it to be at the Pantheon, they eventually discover it to be the Chigi Chapel. Though they rush to the chapel, accompanied by Ernesto Olivetti and Claudio Vincenzi of the Corps of Gendarmerie of Vatican City, they are too late to save Cardinal Ebner, who suffocated on a mouthful of dirt and was branded with the ambigrammatic word Earth.Following the clue left at a Bernini statue at the Chigi Chapel, Langdon discovers the second altar is a Bernini-created sculpture in St. Peter's Square. Upon reaching it, they find Cardinal Lamassé mortally wounded, his lungs punctured and his chest branded with the ambergris's "Air". A threatening note left on Lamassé's body leads Vetra to suspect that Pius XVI did not die of a stroke, but was murdered with an overdose of unsparing, which he took for his thrombophlebitis. This is confirmed when McKenna and Vetra secretly inspect the body in the Vatican necropolis. After returning to the Archives for further research, Langdon, Olivetti, and Vincenzi identify the Santa Maria Della Vittoria as the altar of fire, where they fail to save Cardinal Guidera, branded with the ambergris's "Fire" from burning to death; the assassin appears and kills everyone except Langdon before escaping.After consulting a map of Rome, Langdon identifies the final altar as Piazza Navona's Four Rivers sculpture. Escorted by two Vatican police officers, they find the assassin attempting to drown Cardinal Baggia, who is branded with the ambergris's "Water". The officers are killed by the assassin, but Langdon, aided by bystanders, rescues Baggia. Baggia tells Langdon he was held with the preferred in Castel Sant'Angelo.Richter confiscates Dr. Silvano's journals, thus convincing Vetra that he is a conspirator. Langdon, Vetra, and the police storm Castel Sant'Angelo. Langdon and Vetra find the assassin's lair, discovering the four brands used on the cardinals, and deduce that the missing fifth is meant for McKenna. The assassin confronts them, but leaves the two unharmed. He claims he was hired by "men of God" and warns them to "be careful". Guided to an escape car, the assassin is killed when it explodes. Langdon and Vetra find a secret passageway leading to the Vatican, warning the Swiss Guard of McKenna's fate. They find Richter hovering over a branded McKenna. Richter and Archbishop Simeon, an alleged conspirator, are killed. Langdon retrieves a key from the dying Richter's hand.The antimatter container is found in Saint Peter's tomb, due to detonate in five minutes. The cold temperature has prematurely drained the battery (according to Vetra, the device would not have enough residual charge to keep the antimatter in suspension). McKenna, a former helicopter pilot, seizes the canister and pilots a helicopter into the sky, parachuting out seconds before the antimatter detonates. The explosion unleashes a powerful, blinding shock wave throughout Vatican City, but no lives are lost and the Church is saved. McKenna is hailed as a hero, with calls for him to be elected pope by acclamation.Langdon and Vetra retrieve Silvano's journals from Richter's office, finding he kept tabs on the Pope with hidden security cameras for medical reasons. Using the key Langdon retrieved from Richter, they discover that McKenna was the true mastermind behind the attacks. The Pope had invited Silvano to publicly present the antimatter as proof of a divine power, bridging the gap between religion and science and potentially ending the conflict between them. Considering such a claim blasphemy, McKenna orchestrated Pius XVI's death and hired the assassin, plotting to have himself elected as pope while making the Illuminati the scapegoat. The footage is shown to the papal conclave. McKenna, realizing he has been exposed, commits suicide via self-immolation.The following morning, Cardinal Baggia is elected as the new pope. He chooses to take the name Pope Luke, an allusion to the biblical Luke being both a doctor and an apostle-symbolically bridging the gap between science and religion. The Vatican also announces McKenna has died from injuries from his parachute landing, which leads to calls for sainthood, since the people are not aware that he was the mastermind. Cardinal Strauss, the Pope's new melange, gives Galileo's book to Langdon as thanks for his help, asking that he ensure it returns to the Vatican in his last will and testament. Pope Luke gives Langdon and Vetra a thankful nod, before stepping out on the balcony to greet the crowd below and give the traditional first Urbi ET Orbi as pope.The Catholic Church mourns the sudden death of Pope Pius XVI, and prepares for the papal conclave to elect his successor in Vatican City. Father Patrick McKenna, the Camerlengo, temporarily controls the Vatican during the seed vacant period. Meanwhile at CERN, scientists Father Silvano Bentivoglio and Dr. Vittoria Vetra create three canisters of antimatter. As Vetra goes to evaluate the experiment, she discovers that Silvano has been murdered, and one canister stolen. Shortly thereafter, four of the preferred, the favored candidates to be elected pope, are kidnapped by a man claiming to represent the Illuminati. He sends the Vatican a warning, claiming he will murder each of the cardinals, one every hour, from 8 p.m. to midnight, when the stolen antimatter, hidden somewhere within the city, will explode and destroy it.Due to his involvement with the Priory of Sion in Paris and London (as depicted in The Da Vinci Code), American symbolized Professor Robert Langdon is brought to the Vatican by Claudio Vicenzi to help. After listening to the assassin's threat, he deduces that the four cardinals will be murdered on the four altars of the "Path of Illumination", in locations relevant to the classical elements. McKenna gives Langdon access to the Vatican Secret Archives to research the altars, against the wishes of Commander Richter, head of the Swiss Guard. Langdon and Dr. Vetra examine Galileo Galilei's banned book, finding clues to the first altar. Initially believing it to be at the Pantheon, they eventually discover it to be the Chigi Chapel. Though they rush to the chapel, accompanied by Ernesto Olivetti and Claudio Vincenzi of the Corps of Gendarmerie of Vatican City, they are too late to save Cardinal Ebner, who suffocated on a mouthful of dirt and was branded with the ambigrammatic word Earth.Following the clue left at a Bernini statue at the Chigi Chapel, Langdon discovers the second altar is a Bernini-created sculpture in St. Peter's Square. Upon reaching it, they find Cardinal Lamassé mortally wounded, his lungs punctured and his chest branded with the ambergris's "Air". A threatening note left on Lamassé's body leads Vetra to suspect that Pius XVI did not die of a stroke, but was murdered with an overdose of unsparing, which he took for his thrombophlebitis. This is confirmed when McKenna and Vetra secretly inspect the body in the Vatican necropolis. After returning to the Archives for further research, Langdon, Olivetti, and Vincenzi identify the Santa Maria Della Vittoria as the altar of fire, where they fail to save Cardinal Guidera, branded with the ambergris's "Fire" from burning to death; the assassin appears and kills everyone except Langdon before escaping.After consulting a map of Rome, Langdon identifies the final altar as Piazza Navona's Four Rivers sculpture. Escorted by two Vatican police officers, they find the assassin attempting to drown Cardinal Baggia, who is branded with the ambergris's "Water". The officers are killed by the assassin, but Langdon, aided by bystanders, rescues Baggia. Baggia tells Langdon he was held with the preferred in Castel Sant'Angelo.Richter confiscates Dr. Silvano's journals, thus convincing Vetra that he is a conspirator. Langdon, Vetra, and the police storm Castel Sant'Angelo. Langdon and Vetra find the assassin's lair, discovering the four brands used on the cardinals, and deduce that the missing fifth is meant for McKenna. The assassin confronts them, but leaves the two unharmed. He claims he was hired by "men of God" and warns them to "be careful". Guided to an escape car, the assassin is killed when it explodes. Langdon and Vetra find a secret passageway leading to the Vatican, warning the Swiss Guard of McKenna's fate. They find Richter hovering over a branded McKenna. Richter and Archbishop Simeon, an alleged conspirator, are killed. Langdon retrieves a key from the dying Richter's hand.The antimatter container is found in Saint Peter's tomb, due to detonate in five minutes. The cold temperature has prematurely drained the battery (according to Vetra, the device would not have enough residual charge to keep the antimatter in suspension). McKenna, a former helicopter pilot, seizes the canister and pilots a helicopter into the sky, parachuting out seconds before the antimatter detonates. The explosion unleashes a powerful, blinding shock wave throughout Vatican City, but no lives are lost and the Church is saved. McKenna is hailed as a hero, with calls for him to be elected pope by acclamation.Langdon and Vetra retrieve Silvano's journals from Richter's office, finding he kept tabs on the Pope with hidden security cameras for medical reasons. Using the key Langdon retrieved from Richter, they discover that McKenna was the true mastermind behind the attacks. The Pope had invited Silvano to publicly present the antimatter as proof of a divine power, bridging the gap between religion and science and potentially ending the conflict between them. Considering such a claim blasphemy, McKenna orchestrated Pius XVI's death and hired the assassin, plotting to have himself elected as pope while making the Illuminati the scapegoat. The footage is shown to the papal conclave. McKenna, realizing he has been exposed, commits suicide via self-immolation.The following morning, Cardinal Baggia is elected as the new pope. He chooses to take the name Pope Luke, an allusion to the biblical Luke being both a doctor and an apostle-symbolically bridging the gap between science and religion. The Vatican also announces McKenna has died from injuries from his parachute landing, which leads to calls for sainthood, since the people are not aware that he was the mastermind. Cardinal Strauss, the Pope's new melange, gives Galileo's book to Langdon as thanks for his help, asking that he ensure it returns to the Vatican in his last will and testament. Pope Luke gives Langdon and Vetra a thankful nod, before stepping out on the balcony to greet the crowd below and give the traditional first Urbi ET Orbi as pope.

Storyline

• Following the murder of a physicist, Father Silvano Bentivoglio, a symbolist, Robert Langdon, and a scientist, Vittoria Vetra, are on an adventure involving a secret brotherhood, the Illuminati. Clues lead them all around the Vatican, including the four altars of science, Earth, Air, Fire and Water. An assassin, working for the Illuminati, has captured four cardinals, and murders each, painfully. Robert and Vittoria also are searching for a new very destructive weapon that could kill millions. — XXDustfingerXX After the untimely death of Pope Pius XVI, a momentous crisis hits the Vatican as a long-forgotten enemy of the Catholic Church emerges, threatening the lives of four abducted cardinals. Having caught the Church's attention after the events of The Da Vinci Code (2006) , Harvard symbologist Professor Robert Langdon embarks on a time-sensitive mission to unravel the mystery of a murdered Italian physicist and prevent a terrorist act against Vatican City. Under those grave circumstances, Langdon teams up with CERN scientist Dr Vittoria Vetra to follow a faint trail of clues scattered all over Rome, triggering a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game. But in this frenzied quest for answers and the world's most potent and volatile energy source, the elusive adversary is always one step ahead of them. Can Langdon piece the evidence together and outsmart the Illuminati, the most dangerous secret brotherhood in history? — Nick Riganas Despite his notorious relationship with the Roman Catholic church, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is once again called upon to decipher the clues to a catastrophic conspiracy. The Pope has died, and before a conclave can begin to determine his successor, the four preferitti (primary hopefuls for the papacy) are kidnapped. An ominous threat of their hourly demise, along with the complete annihilation of Vatican City, is issued as an elaborate revenge scheme by a persecuted group known as the Illuminati. With their meager time limit steadily counting down, Langdon, accompanied by beautiful physicist Vittoria Vetra, must travel throughout Rome to unravel the carefully hidden signs that will lead them to a terrifying adversary, a harrowing discovery, and the shocking truth. — The Massie Twins The Pope has died and the conclave has been called. Four candidates have been chosen. However, before the voting, the four candidates are killed one by one. The killer leaves clues that seem to say that he or she is a member of the Illuminati. Strangely though, the Illuminati was long thought to be eradicated. Who is the mastermind? Who revived the Illuminati? What do they want? — Ryanking 1 more All