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Carlo Ventresca: Our church is at war. We are under attack from an old enemy. The Illuminati. They have struck us from within and threatening us all with destruction from their new god's signs.

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The College of Cardinals debate whether or not to allow Father McKenna into the papal election as a candidate via election by acclamation. That process of election was abolished by Pope John Paul II in 1996; the secret ballot method is the only legal means of electing a Pope. See more...

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Thure Lindhart, who plays Lieutenant Chartrand, was considered for the role of Silas the albino monk in The Da Vinci Code, but was later deemed too young and lost the role to Paul Bettany. See more...

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Angels & Demons (2009) - 26 corrections

Directed by Ron Howard, starring Ewan McGregor, Tom Hanks (add more)

Genres: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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At the Harvard(?) pool, the Vatican officer hands Langdon the paper with "illuminati" written on it. Langdon says that "illuminati" is an anagram "because it reads the same backwards and forwards", however the proper word for that is palindrome. [He doesn't call it an "anagram", he calls an "ambigram". Which it is, not a palindrome.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
Near the end of the film, when Langdon rewinds the security camera footage on Commander Richter's PC, the sound heard is that of a recording tape being rewound. A PC wouldn't make the squeaking sound of recording tape being dragged over a magnetic reader. The rest of the equipment at Richter's desk is fairly high-tech, so it's fair to assume that the surveillance cameras too were digital. [Some video players play such sounds when actions are taken. Nostalgia can be quite strong.]
Edit
In "DaVinci Code", Robert Langdon states that papyrus can only be dissolved by vinegar. In "Angels & Demons", he states that Galileo's text was written on papyrus so it could be easily destroyed by throwing it into a barrel of water, not vinegar. [I think he means that the ink that was written on the papyrus would dissolve/be destroyed, and that vinegar would destroy the actual papyrus sheet.]
Edit
All the TV crew vehicles on Saint Peter's Square are Ford E-Series vans, which is a US-only model. While some, those used by US networks, could have been exported, European networks would have no reason to do so. [Not all the vans are Ford E-Series first of all. Second, they can be imported to Europe with a few restrictions, so there being a lot of them is not that unusual. I have seen Fords and Chryslers in Moscow, for instance, and it is tougher to get those vehicles into Russia than many other European countries.]
Edit Corrected by rswarrior
When the hitman throws Cardinal Baggia to the water and salutes Langdon, he closes the van's door, but when he's running away the van's door is open again. [As he is driving out of the plaza we see as shot of the left side of the van. This is the only time we see this side of the van. The door is seen to be closed.]
Edit Corrected by XIII
About 20 minutes into the movie Professor Langdon talks about the set of 5 brands used by the Illuminati, from which the first 4 represents the elements (earth, air, fire, water). When in the end reaching the Castle St. Angelo as the Church Of Illumination and discovering the set of brands in person he is surprised to discover there's a fifth brand. [Langdon is not surprised that there is a fifth brand. He is surprised that the fifth brand is the crossed keys instead of the word "Illuminati."]
Edit Corrected by Guy
When we first see the Illuminati assassin in the scene where he has the four Cardinals locked up behind bars, he speaks in an American accent, ("If God has a problem, it will not be with what I have done but what I am about to do"). Later in the film he speaks continuously in an Italian accent. [Changing accents at will never was a tall order for educated people.]
Edit Corrected by Dr. Gutorov
When Robert and Vittoria visit the first church in the Path of Illumination, the sun is still up and it is fairly light. However when they go to the next church (St. Peter's Square) less then an hour later, it is pitch black. Surely the light levels can't change so drastically in one hour? [I live not too far south of where Rome would be in the US and it will be bright here and then 15 min later, pretty dark. Just depends on what time of the year it is.]
Edit Corrected by shortdanzr
It is said that the four Cardinals will be publicly executed. However, most of the executions are not in public, but instead in areas where no-one is around. [But they are areas that are PUBLIC places and possibly easily seen. Plus they must be the "4 markers".]
Edit Corrected by shortdanzr
The size of the chamber in the Vatican archives is roughly 15X10X5 meters. That's equivalent to 750,000 liters of air. Even if we divide it in half to account for the furniture and take off another 25% to account for under-pressurization, that still leaves 280,000 liters of air. Two men would consume a maximum of 20 liters per minute, if they were hyper-ventilating. That's 233 hours worth of air, or almost ten days. Langdon and the security guard were trapped there for less than twenty minutes in all. [Except it is stated that the air is pumped out of the room to make it vacuum-sealed.]
Edit Corrected by rswarrior
The Camerlengo takes the antimatter up in a helicopter to save others from the explosion. However, if the blast is large enough to destroy Vatican City, it could have stretched vertically far enough to reach the ground. It would also certainly destroy any aircraft in the blast radius. It is unlikely that a religious man would choose to move the canister, and therefore "playing God" by choosing who lives and dies. [What, the same "religious man" who killed the Pope, arranged the deaths of a scientist and four senior cardinals, then finally killed the assassin that he brought in to do the other executions? At what point in the film did you get the impression that he's deeply concerned about the sanctity of human life? The Camerlengo's done his research, he knows what the bomb's capable of and he's intelligent enough to ensure that a great enough altitude is reached for those on the ground to survive. If a few people do end up dying in the blast, on the ground or in an aircraft, he'd regard it as a small price to pay to restore the Catholic Church to his vision of what it should be, given what he's done already.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
The first Cardinal is supposed to be executed at 8 p.m. However, the setting is light, and does not look at all like evening. [It can easily still be fully light at 8pm at the right time of the year.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
If the illuminati were not truly still active, then the Camerlengo would have had to solve the same puzzle as Langdon. Not Likely. And an extreme cover to get the nuances correct if it were a cover story. If the illuminati were still active, the Camerlengo would have to be a member. Why at the end of the film was no one therefore concerned to go after them as well? [This is an opinion, which is not generally a solid grounding for a mistake. The Camerlengo has full access to the Vatican archives which would give him all the information he would need to work out the Path of Illumination. According to the book, he finds the brands in a classified section of the archive, plus a great deal of other information, which could simply have included the locations of the Altars. Even if not, he has everything he needs and a lot more time than Langdon had to research it.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
Boca Davie's comment was interesting and I have an addition to that scene. When Dr. Vetra placed her chin in the cup for the eye scanner and subsequently discovered blood on her chin, she was on the outside of the lab door. When she proceeded, she found the eyeball and the dead scientist inside the lab. If the assassin was let into the lab by the scientist, why did he need the eyeball to get out and if he did need it to get in, how did he get it in the first place if the scientist was inside? All irrelevant: if he somehow gained access and ripped out the eyeball to get out undetected, then the blood should have been on a scanner on the inside of the lab, not the outside. [Submitted and corrected - the body isn't found inside the secure area.]
Edit Corrected by littlestar
Contrary to what the movie suggests, cold temperatures improve battery life. The correct storage temperature for batteries is a cool temperature. [It is true that batteries hold their charge longer when stored at cool temperatures. However, when a battery is discharged at a cool temperature, it is used up much faster than at a warmer temperature. This is noticeable with cell phones and digital cameras, which have a markedly shorter battery life when used in cold environments. In the movie, the battery was being discharged at a cold temperature, so it was used up more rapidly than usual.]
Edit Corrected by Albany
The "bomb" comprises anti-matter suspended in an electromagnetic field; while anti-particles have charge and can be suspended like this, anti-matter doesn't and can't. Even in the event of it being called anti-matter as a character mistake, the amount of energy required to keep such a large amount suspended would far exceed the energy that could be produced by a battery, therefore the whole concept of a "bomb" that could be carried around is false. [Use of a fictional technology in a fictional film is not a movie mistake.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
It would take 2 billion years to make just 1 gram of anti-matter in a best-case scenario. According to CERN, if they annihilated all the anti-matter they have ever created, there would only be enough energy to light a light bulb for a few minutes, so an anti-matter bomb is fanciful to say the least. [Fanciful, yes, but being fanciful is not a mistake. This is a fictional universe, not the real one. In the version of our world portrayed in the film, they have the capability to make anti-matter in the quantities required.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
The Vatican Archive is portrayed as a super-sophisticated complex of sealed chambers with controlled oxygen levels, and hallways that stretch seemingly far into the distance. As a quick visit to the Vatican website reveals, the Archive facilities are considerably more mundane and humble, looking much like an ordinary university store of old records and other literature. [These archives are meant to depict the Secret Archives. It is possible that the Vatican has a secret archive room that no one has been in that looks like that.]
Edit Corrected by shortdanzr
After the cylinder is stolen from CERN, Vittoria explains that it is filled with a "highly combustible material": antimatter. Combustion is a chemical reaction, whereas matter/antimatter annihilation is a much more basic sort of quantum mechanical interaction. A layperson might make the mistake of referring to it as combustion, but a professional physicist never would. A more accurate word would be "volatile". [However, she is trying to explain this material to lay people. I believe she meant combustible as explosive. As in if the battery died then the resulting explosion would be catastrophic.]
Edit Corrected by shortdanzr
As the chains are set free, Cardinal Guidera appears to completely fall into the fire to burn to his death. However in the next two shots, he is still suspended above the fire by two apparently taut chains. [One chain comes loose and he falls lower into the fire. It then gets caught again, taking the full strain of his weight and taughtening the chains.]
Edit Corrected by SexyIrishLeprechaun

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