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The month of May is shaping up to be an exciting one here in Rome, not least because the long-awaited film adaptation of Dan Brown’s bestselling book Angels and Demons is due to be released on 13  May in Rome and on 15 May in the United States.

Angels and Demons revolves around a plot by a sinister elite group known as the Illuminati to install their candidate as Pope and blow up the Vatican using antimatter. Crucial and dramatic scenes are set in the Vatican and in two Rome churches — Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria. In both churches, cardinals are murdered in the most gory of fashions and their bodies are mutilated with mysterious marks and symbols.

Filming began in Rome in May 2008, but the Vatican quickly banned actors and filmmakers its grounds or any church in Rome, describing the work as “an offense against God”.  Thus, the production team recreated the interiors of the churches from which they were banned on a set in Hollywood, and used the marble halls and staircases of the former royal palace at Caserta, near Naples, to double for Vatican interiors.  Nonetheless, Vatican officials were unable to prevent the film-makers from shooting exterior shots of St Peter’s and the surrounding medieval streets of the Borgo.

Acclaimed symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is called to look into the matter and throw light on the modus operandi of The Illuminati. In doing so, he races madly about Rome, hoping to stop the Illuminati, whose beef with the Vatican revolves around the long-standing conflict between religion and science that was most dramatically played out during the Inquisition.  Langdon knows that he must “let angels be his guide,” and he criss-crosses the Eternal City, trying to find the meeting place of the Illuminati by following “Altars of Science” placed on “the Path of Illumination,” each of which was created by Baroque wonder-boy Gianlorenzo Bernini.

Acknowledging that the former Dan Brown film, Da Vinci Code, moved a bit slowly and was a bit stagey, director Ron Howard promises a dramatic movie that (plot aside) should provide plenty of Eternal eye-candy for lovers of Rome.

As the release date for the film grows near, Columbia Pictures has begun to hype Angels and Demons, releasing movie stills (see photos above) and setting up a super-spooky website (below) that lets you exercise your symbological skills.  If you can successfully solve the puzzles that are part of the Path of Illumination contest, you may win a trip to Rome.  So, go at it eCoolers!  Let the angels be your guides!