WHEN you’re sitting inside a vast wooden globe at the foot of a mountain range, waiting for Tom Hanks to appear, you know something special’s about to happen.

This secretive location is worthy of a Dan Brown mystery novel and that’s exactly why we’re here.

The globe, at the heart of the enormous particle physics laboratory, CERN, has been carefully chosen for a screening of some tantalising clips from Angels & Demons, director Ron Howard’s follow-up to The Da Vinci Code.

Hanks is back as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who is once again called on to solve a chilling murder case at the hands of ancient dark forces.

After a spine-tingling eight minutes of footage, the actor and director emerge from a concealed hideout in the domed roof, walk down a ramp and seat themselves before the gathered media.

Hanks, dapper in dark blue, is in jovial mood and quick to explain why he couldn’t resist playing the tweed and Mickey Mouse watch- wearing Langdon again.

"I’m not going to give up on this gig, it’s an awfully good job. I’m not going to hand it over to someone else – I’m not stoopid!" he says, flashing his famous cheeky grin.

In the year that marks the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth, it’s an uncanny coincidence that Angels & Demons focuses on the age-old debate between science and religion.

Dan Brown’s story opens with the discovery at CERN of a murdered physicist who has been branded with an ancient symbol, thought to be that of the Illuminati.

A canister of deadly anti-matter has been stolen from the laboratory and now lies, like a ticking bomb, deep beneath Vatican City in Rome, just as Conclave – the selection of a new Pope – is about to begin.

The Illuminati was a secret society founded in Bavaria in 1776, with members spread throughout government, science and the arts.

Many believe the society dates back even further to the 1500s, and came about to counter the church’s scientific thinking at the time.

In Angels & Demons, these "Enlightened Ones" were driven underground and disappeared more than 100 years ago, becoming fiercely anti-Vatican.

Conspiracy theorists believe the Illuminati still exist to this day and are engineering events across the globe to create a New World Order.

Against this background, Illuminati expert Langdon is summoned to Rome, where he meets beautiful scientist Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer).

The two set off on a high-octane chase across Rome, following the 400-year-old Path of Illumination, to stop the Vatican literally being destroyed by science.

Double Oscar winner Hanks, 52, reveals it was those very questions about science and religion in Angels & Demons that drew him to the script.

"When I go to church, and I do, I ponder the mystery. I meditate on the ’why’. Why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.

"Artists are interested in answers and that’s why I think CERN is a good place. It’s like a great observ- atory where you can see the unseen, a combination of school and church and wonderful discovery.

"Both science and religion speak in a different language, but every now and again they hit on the same subject. We are all the same thing, we’re all just one."