Plot hole: Towards the end, Patrick takes the 5kt bomb into a helicopter and climbs it away to safety. The problem with that is that the helicopters have a rather low rate of climb - ~10 m/s for military helicopters, less than that for civilian ones. This is the rate of climb at low altitudes, and it is with altitude. He had less than 5 minutes to climb, which would put the bomb at most 3000 meters above the city, and more realistically, one tenth that - just about the optimum height for the bomb to inflict major damage on the Vatican city and the center of Rome.
Angels & Demons (2009)
1 plot hole
Directed by: Ron Howard
Starring: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Stellan Skarsgard, Ayelet Zurer
Other mistake: After Langdon saves the last of the Preferati by diving into the fountain, he heads off to St. Angelo with dry clothes. Since it is only ten or fifteen minutes later, his clothes should be soaked.
Robert Langdon: The Illuminati did not become violent until the 17th Century. Their name means 'The Enlightened Ones'. They were physicists, mathematicians, astronomers. In the 1500's they started meeting in secret, because they were concerned about the church's inaccurate teachings. They were dedicated to scientific truth. And the Vatican didn't like that. So the church began to, how did you say it? Oh, hunt them down and kill them.
Trivia: Considering Dan Brown's works anti-Catholic blasphemies, the Catholic church would not allow Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard to shoot film scenes in two historic cathedrals in Italy's capital city: Santa Mariadel Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria. They were allowed to film external shots only.
Question: When Langdon and the Italian cop are trapped inside the sealed room of the Vatican archive and the air is shut off, how long could they actually survive in a space that size? In the movie, they start to suffocate almost immediately. (There is no long time lapse because the movie's plot depends on defusing the bomb within a few hours).
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Chosen answer: In reality, they would have perished from CO2 poisoning long before the room ran out of breathable oxygen causing them to simply suffocate. Without knowing the exact dimensions of the room it is impossible to give any time more specific than "several hours" for this to happen in a room as big as that one appeared to be.
Phixius ★
I just re-watched the movie, and as Langdon and Vittoria enter the room, it's mentioned to them that the oxygen levels are always kept at a bare minimum to protect the ancient tomes and documents stored there. That helps to answer my own question about why Langdon and the cop were so quickly affected when the power was shut off.
raywest ★