Inferno
Directed by Ron Howard
Starring Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Ben Foster, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan
[rating: 2/5]
Reviewed by Michael Dalton
Anyone who was looking forward to Ron Howard’s new film Inferno, the third big screen adventure of Robert Langdon, better fasten their seatbelts. Yes that know-it-all globe-trotting professor from The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons is back. I love Bob. Even with murderous thugs and religious zealots only 20 feet behind, he always finds time to pause and lecture his comely assistant on Jesus Christ, His history, and the history of anyone who ever dwelled within 2 centuries of Him. And after the skyhigh drama, thrills, and spills of Angels, who could be blamed for expecting Armageddon? Hallucinations about rivers of blood and medieval massacres abound in this outing that is, for my money, the funniest movie of the year so to his faithful flock I say, embrace this one. There may not be another.
The good doctor (Tom Hanks) is still sort of fit and wide-eyed and his memory comes and goes but it must be said, Bob’s talent for symbology and religious iconology is as acute as ever. He’s even been to a salon. This adventure begins with him waking up in a hospital with stitches on his scalp and a dazed memory. A bullet grazed it but luckily he’s under the care of the shapely Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones). He soon discovers, in his possession, a cylinder that contains the graphics of Botticelli’s Map of Hell which is based on Dante’s Inferno and everybody wants it. There’s also the threat of a deadly virus, engineered by bioengineer Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), set to knock out half the world’s population. Sickened by mankind’s excesses (aren’t we all?), he tells the world, on what appears to be his very own talk show, that “Humanity is the disease. Inferno is the cure”. Zing! So Bobby and Sienna are soon on the run and on their tails is a gang of armed, ruthless operatives working for the World Health Organisation (of course) and a shadow consortium overseen by problem solver and narrative explainer Harry Sims (Irrfan Khan, having an absolute ball and the best reason to stay in your seat). Robert desperately tries to figure out what it all means and to make matters worse, there’s security footage of him and a friend stealing Dante’s death mask. No wonder he keeps stopping to clutch his head in agony.
Whichever way you take Inferno, it’s a ball of fun. Ripe for parody, there’s a lot of explaining going on (Inferno is all plot) and it moves along at lightning speed with the dynamic duo dashing in and out of museums (I lost count of how many side doors they suddenly emerged from) and quickly spouting more of those historical footnotes. The band of cutthroats giving chase come off more like a high level crack team in the pay of the CIA and Miss Jones, well, what is she up to? A friend murmured to me halfway through the film, “I don’t know if I trust her now”. How right he was. She stole The Theory of Everything, the little minx, and she’s up to her old tricks here too. And poor Tom Hanks. Only a month ago he played Sully for Clint Eastwood where he solved a deadly problem in 208 seconds. He’s not as economical here.
