Inferno

Tom Hanks is back in this third outing as Professor of Iconology Robert Langdon. This time he finds himself in a hospital in Florence with no knowledge of how he got there from Boston, which is last recountable memory. He is being tended to by Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) a doctor at the hospital and a fan of Langdons so after an attempt is made on his life she aides his escape. When he finds a container in his pocket containing an skewed picture of Dantes inferno they manage to link the drawing to a geneticist Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster) whos vocal and extremist views on overpopulation of the world has him on the watch list of many government agencies.

As Langdon realises that he is a wanted man his amnesia causes him to mistrust everybody so he goes on the run, along with Brooks to try and work out why he is in possession of the drawing and what links it to Zobrist. So begins the hunt as Langdon unravels the clues to uncover the truth all the while having the authorities on his tail including the mysterious Vayentha (Ana Ularu), who has the most purposeful walk I’ve seen since Robert Patrick as the T-1000.

While I have read both the DaVinci Code and Angels And Demons I have not read this novel so I can only assume that it is reasonably faithful to the source material. If this is the case then I hope that the plot line makes more sense on print as I found this to be an awful mess of a storyline. I won’t give anything away in terms of a spoiler but it’s fairly common knowledge that this movie revolves around the potential release of a virus which will wipe out a large portion of the human population so if this was an agenda for somebody who was in possession of such a bacterial agent I would expect that they would just release the virus. Instead we have a convoluted mix of clues, each leading to the next step towards finding the location of the virus which is waiting to be released. It’s a glorified version of how the villains in the early James Bond movies always took the time to explain their plans for world domination to the character before killing him.

This is only the beginning of my gripe. I know that Langdon is a well know person in certain circles but I doubt he is famous enough to be allowed to pass though closed off areas of tourist attractions and not have anybody approach him regarding what he may be doing, yet he seems to have free reign to run around said areas in search of clues with it even going so far as to being able to take an exhibit without recourse, the World Health Organisation are now almost militaristic in their approach to things, crack shot hit-men suddenly can’t hit a barn door with a banjo, a believable twist but one that was so obvious that I called it twenty minutes into the film, then further twists which are extremely far fetched and a climax so ridiculous. The whole thing felt like an amateur hour idea in its execution.

The premise itself is fine. Humanity is ruining the planet, like a disease and the only way to solve the problem is to eliminate the many to save the few, no problem with that concept but the whole thing just left like it was a lazy adaptation of a story with no real sense of danger or drama considering the supposed consequences.

There is a lot more wrong with this film and I could go on but I’ve said about as much as I can without giving the movie away, just in case you do decide to check it out. Considering this is directed by Ron Howard it’s a very poor effort and Tom Hanks felt like he was phoning it in as the usual charisma and intensity he brings was missing, which is not something I can ever recall saying before so I can only blame the material on that. The rest of the cast as similarly wasted with Omar Sy & Ben Foster completely underused and apart from Hanks & Jones the only person who stood out was Irrfan Khan as Harry Sims, head of the unknown group who are chasing Langdon. I’m not sure if it was the actors performance or his lines which were the reason for the humour in the role, whichever it was, it was one of the few bright spots in a poor film which is overlong, preachy and not as good as the previous two movies, neither of which was great either.

In a year full of disappointing movies this one is down the lower echelons of that list.

DJ Speaks Rating: 4 Out Of 10