The sequel to The Da Vinci Code is here! Conspiracy theorists rejoice! Church apologists batten down your hatches and prepare for war!

Or maybe not.

After all the hoopla and controversy from Code, you’d think that people would be getting up in arms in preparation for Angels and Demons. What of the Illuminati and their supposed ties to the Catholic Church? Surely that’s worth some righteous anger somewhere.

But if you take a quick survey of most of the press leading up to this release, the usual suspects have been relatively calm. No big protests or boycotts, simply statements from the Church/the Vatican/various Catholic leaders about how it’s a work of fiction and how people should take it with a grain of salt.

And you know what? That’s probably the perfect response for this film, because in truth, it’s really just a mystery/conspiracy theory thriller in religious clothing. While it implies that the Illuminati is a secret organization bent on getting revenge on the Catholic Church for years of persecution, this assertion isn’t that controversial (at least for this Protestant-raised reviewer).

In truth, I found The Da Vinci Code to be a much more thought-provoking film. I’d never seen it until a few weeks ago, when I checked it out to get caught up on the adventures of symbologist (is that even a word?) Robert Langdon. While that film definitely has its flaws, the overall story seemed a little weightier and more engaging.

Here’s the story of Angels and Demons in a nutshell: the pope has died and just as the papal congress to select his successor begins, the four leading candidates are kidnapped and clues are dropped that the long-dormant Illuminati might be behind the abductions. There’s also another sub/side plot about a theft of anti-matter from the CERN research facility in Switzerland. The two threads become interwoven pretty quickly, but I won’t give away how or why, as that’s pretty much the extent of the story for the whole film.

Angels and Demons seems to simply fly by, hopping from one location to the next, each clue popping up just in time to lead Langston and the Vatican police to the next location. While I’m sure that the filmmakers were concerned about quickening the pace and tightening the editing after the long walk that is Code, it seems like they went to the opposite extreme here. There’s a lot of Bourne-esque shaky cam work, which seems exciting…until you realize that all you’re seeing is Langdon’s point of view as he heads down a hidden dark stone hallway in a church.

In the end, this isn’t a bad film so much as it feels almost like a throwaway one. It’s the kind that, in a few years, will play on repeat during the weekends on TBS or TNT. It’s got solid performances from all of its lead actors, but ultimately there’s just not much to hold onto in the plot.