Inferno

The geneticist Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster) is hunted down by three men and commits suicide from the top of a tower in Florence. Zobrist believes that the Earth's population that has an exponential growth should be reduced in 50% to save the other 50%. In Florence, Professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) awakens in a hospital with no memory of the last two days and with daydreams and dreadful visions. Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) explains that he has a head trauma cause by a bullet that scratched his head and he would recover his memory in a few days. Out of the blue, a doctor tells that the police wants to interrogate him and a police officer, who is indeed the killer Vayentha (Ana Ularu), shoots the doctor but Sienna and Langdon succeeds to escape to her apartment. Langdon finds a Faraday pointer in the pocket of his jacket and when they project the image, they see the Map of Dante's Inferno by Sandro Botticelli. They contact the American Consulate but give the wrong address nearby the apartment. Soon the area is under siege of the World Health Organization (WHO) agents and the local police, including Vayentha, and Langdon and Sienna conclude that Zobrist has created a virus to annihilate the world's population. But who can be trusted?

"Inferno" completes the trilogy of Dan Brown based on the adventures of Professor Robert Langdon with a totally disappointing and predictable story. The screenplay is a mess and the camera work and edition are awful. Robert Langdon is a superman since he is wounded and with amnesia, but capable of run, jump over the walls, recalls details such as hidden passages and door in different locations etc. The plot point with Sienna Brooks is totally predictable and it was obvious that she had teamed up with Langdon to find where the virus is. The romance between Langdon and Elizabeth Sinskey, performed by the unknown Sidse Babett Knudsen, has no chemistry. In the end, "Inferno" is absolutely forgettable. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Inferno"

Imagine if Spielberg had directed 'Godfather' and Coppola had directed the Indiana Jones movies. Both great directors, but it wouldn't have worked.

Same thing applies here. Like the first two in this franchise, 'Da Vinci Code' and 'Angels and Demons', there's just something terribly wrong with the direction. Yes, the Langdon movies are suppose to be fast paced, but if almost no scenes are allowed to breathe, does it matter?

And why do director Ron Howard keep on insisting insulting my intelligence? Like in the first two, many things are explained twice, so even the dumbest one in the audience knows what's going on.

Then there's the blatant mistake of shooting the movie in standard widescreen, instead of cinemascope, like the first two. When you make a movie with several visually looking fantastic locales around the world, it SCREAMS cinemascope.

And the best park of the book? They completely changed it. Guess they wanted to avoid any controversy.

Hans Zimmer's score was great, as usual, though.

The first two Langdon-movies are hovering at 6,6 on IMDb. So will this when the dust settles.

If the studio decides to make 'Lost Symbol' and - for once - have a Langdon movie getting great reviews, they should probably hire another director.

This review is from the perspective of someone who hasn't read the book but still knows his/her movies.

The movie's start is very confusing at first, where Robert Langdon has some visions but they don't really seem necessary and so it takes quite some time to establish the plot. It lacks the inclusion of Renaissance artists' work or a history lesson here or there, they are there, with the main focus on Dante, however it's still not as much as compared to the previous 2 movies, which just made them so much more interesting.

There a couple of plot twists in the movie but nothing that might throw you off your seat or make the movie more interesting.

Hans Zimmer's background score felt under par compared to the beautiful scores and themes he has given for The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons and countless other movies.

Another thing that I felt lacking was a final turn in the end, like a final nail in the coffin, like the previous 2 movies had.

Overall, I don't know about Dan Brown's novel, but the writing of the script was not up to the mark.

I enjoyed the Inferno film for the most part as I'm very fond of Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon. One of the main reasons that I like these books so much is because they provide such a wealth of background historical information so they're a prefect blend of education and entertainment.

While it was obviously impractical to include an involved literary discussion of Dante's Inferno in the film, it's a shame that it was barely touched on at all as to me, it was one of the most interesting aspects of the entire story. Like many, I was also surprised and disappointed by the changed ending. The book's solution was challenging but elegant; the film…clunky and predictable.

Pity.

So, Ron Howard, Tom Hanks and Hans Zimmer return for the third movie adaptation of Dan Brown's bestselling symbolist and iconology professional, Robert Langdon. Though we seem to be ironically missing, The Lost Symbol where Langdon tramples over Washington's Masonic history, which is currently in development but with Howard only sitting in a producers chair.

Howard's direction, or the editing seems sloppy and rushed with noticeable out-of-sync audio. It shows that they struggled with cramming as much as the butchered novel into the 121min runtime, missing possible reshoots as some of the performances are really not up to scratch, namely Sidse Babett Knudsen and Omar Sy.

Hanks, slips into Langdon mode totally as expected and the delightful Felicity Jones plays the Bond-girl style sidekick very well as we watch them try to figure out the same puzzles and twists Langdon is usually pitted against. It's unfortunate that the more I think about it, the more silly the elaborate idea becomes.

There's inconsistencies and obvious inaccuracies with the book and I wonder how much power Dan Brown had as executive producer. The story here appears much weaker than the novel, as does some of its characters, especially the reworking of Irrfan Khan's "Provost". A lot of the reasonings are just weak and unrealistic which is a shame for something which could actually happen.

Zimmer's score is of the recognisable Langdon theme but, it's been digitised adding a terrible technical feel that might accompany a espionage thriller. Again, giving me the assumption that the film was rushed and not the polished film it should have been.

What's possibly the biggest disappointment of the film is the factual reality that the story is based on, and as much as we all might like the previous, popular Brown conspiracies, this story is a real looming crisis. It lacks the serious impact the book gives of the current population crisis, the fact that we're nearly 9 billion people on a planet that can currently only support an estimated 4.

It fails to question what we should or what would we do in this situation, which we are actually in and is a serious topic for world governments, councils and organisations like WHO. Should we actively do something about population control or let nature take it's natural course. I don't honestly believe this film has audiences going home and taking a long hard think about the issue or the implications of viruses and other methods of population control. The real question being, do we let people die or save as many as we can to keep mankind from extinction.

True to most trilogy tragedies, this is certainly the worse of the series so far and I'm hoping The Lost Symbol doesn't fall to the same fate with a rumoured Mark Romanek at the helm. I had low expectations to begin with and unfortunately it didn't hit the mark.

Running Time: 6 The Cast: 6 Performance: 6 Direction: 4 Story: 5 Script: 5 Creativity: 7 Soundtrack: 4 Job Description: 3 The Extra Bonus Points: 0 Would I buy the Bluray?: actually yes, only to be part of the series.

46% 5/10