Deliberate mistake: A branding iron loses its bright orange glow relatively fast when it's out of the fire. When the police enters the room it is still very bright orange even though it has been on the floor for some time.
Angels & Demons (2009)
1 deliberate mistake - chronological order
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: Ron Howard's father, Rance, makes a cameo as one of the Cardinals locked in conclave. (00:32:10)
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).
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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 ★