Visible crew/equipment: In St. Peters Square at 8:58pm the head of the Saints statue looks like Director Ron Howard. (00:57:25)
Continuity mistake: When the camera focuses on the French reporter standing on top of the van, he has his arm up, but in the next close-up it's down and resting by his lap.
Factual error: It is stated by Langdon that after the Pope's death, but before the successor is chosen, that the Camerlengo would become the head of the Church. This is incorrect. The Camerlengo would become Vatican City's acting head of state, however, the Church's leadership would actually be the College of Cardinals.
Character mistake: While examining "Diagramma della Verita" in the Vatican archives, Langdon is careful to use a cotton glove and a pair of tongs to turn the pages. But when he returns later to search the Bernini texts for clues about the "fire" church, he turns the book pages with his bare hands. (00:36:30 - 01:04:55)
Factual error: Father McKenna is a simple priest and holds the post of Camerlengo, however the Camerlengo is always a Cardinal.
Continuity mistake: When Ewan McGregor runs out to the helicopter with the antimatter, you can't see the landing gear even when there is a flash of light from someone's camera in the crowd. In the next shot you can see the landing gear is down.
Continuity mistake: When they are held up by tourists, while trying to get to the second church, there is a bus just behind them. Once the tourists move, the bus has gone.
Visible crew/equipment: In their first visit to the Vatican Archives, Robert and Vittoria are sitting at the table across from one another. When Vittoria asks Robert "Do you need help with Latin?" the shadow of the boom mic is seen moving on Robert's face. (00:37:45)
Factual error: In the beginning of the movie, we saw the Ring of the Fisherman of the dead pope, inscribed with his name: "PIUS XVI". However, the inscription should be done in Latin style, which uses "V" instead of "U". Thus the correct inscription should read "PIVS XVI". The Latin style of writing is evident in the Ring of the Fisherman that is worn by the real, currently reigning pope, Benedict XVI, which is inscribed "BENEDICTVS XVI".
Continuity mistake: When the Camerlengo parachutes onto the Vatican, the amount of blood on his nose changes from nothing to a lot between shots.
Factual error: Langdon says Air Water Fire and Earth are fundamental scientific elements. That's not true. The "five elements" are philosophic, not scientific. (00:20:25)
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.
Revealing mistake: When the reporters say that the second black smoke is showing, an aerial panning shot of the Vatican is shown, yet the smoke remains fix as if it were a painting.
Factual error: 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.
Character mistake: The reporter speaking Spanish at the end of the movie spells the Spanish word for fire wrong. He says "inciendo" instead of the correct "incendio." (02:07:11)
Continuity mistake: After Vittoria sees the little spot of blood on her chin she wipes it all off with her finger, but a moment later a good bit of the spot is still there. (00:08:30)
Character mistake: When Robert and Vittoria arrive at the Vatican archives for the first time, there is a plaque on which it says "Il Processo Galileano", which is misspelled, as the right pronunciation is "GALILEIANO", with the "i" between the "e" and the "a."
Revealing mistake: Following the drowning cardinal scene, Richter is shown loading a pistol with a magazine and chambering a round. You can immediately hear the hammer striking the firing pin on the pistol, revealing the gun was empty. As well as Commander Richter's pitiful trigger discipline. (01:40:30)
Audio problem: When Langdon and the Swiss guard are in the file room out of oxygen, the guard presses the oxygen control screen nervously, and a "clac" sound is heard. The shot changes and he stops pressing the button, yet the previous clac-clac-clac is heard for a couple seconds.
Continuity mistake: When the new threat is shown to Professor Langdon, the first time he asked it to be stopped, the threat says "We will brand your preferiti and sacrifi-" it end there. But when it was played again two minutes later, it repeated to "and sacrifice them to the altars of Science." (00:20:50 - 00:22:15)
Chosen answer: In the book, the location of the antimatter bomb is only revealed after the Camerlengo pretends to have a "vision from God" on the steps of the Vatican. By changing the symbol to one that actually provides a clue to the location, it allows Langdon to work out where the bomb is, to actually play some part in proceedings rather than passively stand by until the villain just takes everybody there as part of his plan. As for the Pope being the Camerlengo's biological father, this is a fairly late revelation in the book and requires a substantial amount of exposition, which would only serve to abruptly slow the film to a crawl during the climax. The Camerlengo's motives, his hatred for the church's indulgence of science, are strong enough to explain his actions without the additional detail of his parentage being necessary, thus it could be safely left out to keep the film's momentum going.
Tailkinker ★