Last week I read and commented on Sr. Helena Burns’ review of the movie Angels & Demons. This is what I wrote:

Good review except for this one sentence: “The screenplay (which is kinder to the Catholic Church than the book) zigzags schizophrenically between insulting the Church and patting her on the head.” Schizophrenia is not the disorder you wanted to refer to. What you wanted to refer to was dissociative identity disorder, also known as multiple personality disorder. The pope made a similar mistake almost a year ago. You can read about it here:
http://grigaitis.net/blog/2008/09/humble-correction-of-the-pope/

Sr. Helena respectfully made this reply describing how she corrected her review:

Thanks! I fixed it to “rapidly.”

Today I saw the movie at a matinée and have decided that schizophrenic, though Sr. Helena used it in the wrong context, describes this movie perfectly.

A couple of times close to the beginning of the movie, I was almost offended; however, closer to the end, I could hardly keep myself from laughing out loud it was so ridiculous. Of course you shouldn’t react either way when dealing with someone delusional, and this is how I interpret the main character, Robert Langdon.

Mr. Langdon is a very ill person who believes he’s been summoned to help the Vatican. His delusions defy theology, history, and physics. This is the only rational way I can explain what goes on in this movie.

I met a guy once on the psych ward who had similar delusions. It was ten years ago, so I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember that the organisation that played the same role in his delusion as the Vatican in this movie was MTV. He believed that some evil force in this world was going to annihilate everyone of his ethic background, and was sending all sorts of e-mails to MTV for this to be stopped. Maybe Ron Howard should base his next movie on this story.

I can’t take the delusions of Angels & Demons seriously enough to be offended by them, just as I can’t be offended by the delusions of someone with schizophrenia.

Now I’m not saying that Dan Brown and Ron Howard have schizophrenia. I doubt they share the same delusions their stories suffer from, which begs the question: Why are they creating these stories?

They must have some unhealthy obsession with the Catholic Church. Maybe they should turn it into a healthy obsession. Wouldn’t it be something if both of them became devout Catholics a few years from now?