Third time no treat for decoding crusade
Inferno
Starring Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Omar Sy and Irrfan Khan. Directed by Ron Howard. Opens Friday at major theatres. 120 minutes. 14A Inferno finds Tom Hanks dashing and decoding with more frantic propulsion than ever, as this latest Dan Brown novel adaptation shifts from artistic puzzling to rote planet-saving.
Yet amongst all the many headscratching images and ciphers his symbol sleuth Robert Langdon squints at, there is but one that should concern us.
It’s the number three, which hovers like a spectral presence over the proceedings. This is the third Robert Langdon movie, following The Da Vinci Code (2006) and Angels and Demons (2009). Once again directed by the reliable Ron Howard, it’s by far the worst of this less-than-stellar trio.
You don’t need a degree in cryptology or cinema studies to suss out that, with rare exceptions, the third movie in any franchise is not a treat. Characters and plot lines that initially engaged begin to breed contempt, unless creative changes are made to freshen the concept.
Alas, the shift from the cloistered chicanery of the first two films into faux 007 territory does this series no good at all. Brown deserves as much blame for this as Howard and screenwriter David Koepp ( Angels and Demons).
Robert Langdon is no James Bond and neither is the 60-year-old Hanks, although Inferno lamely tries to set them up as such. Langdon awakes in a hospital room in Flor- ence, Italy, bleeding from a head wound and suffering from memory lapses and apocalyptic visions that will conveniently kick in when the ludicrous plot needs a boot.
He barely gets to meet with attending physician Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones on autopilot) before bullets start flying and the two are on the run from numerous pursuers, who all apparently studied Dante’s Inferno and Botticelli’s Map of Hell in high school.
As we soon learn, the billionaire biotech guru seen in the prologue, played by a scary-eyed Ben Foster, has created a disease called Inferno to kill half the world, because “humanity is the disease; Inferno is the cure,” amirite?
Like innumerable pinky-sucking Bond villains before him, he doesn’t want to just unleash his killer cooties. He’s taken the time to hide the bug in an oh-so-clever spot and to leave clues to it like an evil Easter egg hunt.
This gives licence to Langdon and Brooks to tear around the globe, backed by a pounding Hans Zimmer score while shouting out gobs of obvious exposition: “They’re going to wipe out half the world’s population unless we find this virus!” (Is that concern on Hanks’s face, or boredom?)
The mob of scowlers on their tail include a very nasty woman (Ana Ularu), two nattily attired assailants (Omar Sy and Irrfan Khan, who de- serve better) and a World Health Organization boss (Sidse Babett Knudsen, suitably intense), who of course has a previous romantic connection to Langdon.
An age-appropriate one at that, which is something this franchise sorely needs, along with CGI effects better than the bog-level ones on view here.
More than anything, though, this series needs closure, while it awaits the inevitable reboot.