Inferno fails to catch fire
Inferno (M, 121 mins)
Just when you thought Dan Brown’s plots couldn’t get more barmy than 2009’s anti-matterattack-on-the-Vatican thriller Angels and Demons, along comes this apocalyptic nightmare.
Actually the fourth book in the Robert Langdon/Da Vinci Code saga (the jury is out on whether the third instalment The Lost Symbol was too boring or too Mormon-baiting to be adapted), Inferno takes the first part of Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy and associated artistic depictions of hell as its inspiration. Or at least, billionaire United States bio-engineer Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster) does.
He has posthumously set Langdon a time-sensitive treasure hunt inspired by Dante’s ‘‘circles of hell’’ which will lead to a ‘‘cure’’ to society’s over-population problem. Not that Langdon (Tom Hanks) particularly wants to unleash a plague, but with everyone from the US Consulate to the World Health Organisation seemingly full of people who want the deadly virus for themselves, it feels preferable for him to get there first. Adding to Langdon’s woes though is that he’s still recovering from a bump on the noggin which has left him with temporary amnesia and reliant on his young doctor Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) to fill in the gaps.
Yes, while Inferno‘ s plot might be inspired by art history it’s structure is straight out of film noir 101. Double crosses, femme fatales and Hitchcock-esque McGuffins abound, as Langdon woozily runs his way around Italy searching for the truth as to what is really going on. But while fans of footchases and cobbled streets will have plenty to enjoy and the Peter Lorre-esque presence of Irrfan Khan’s ( Life of Pi) shadowy Harry is a hoot, the normally reliable Ron Howard seriously fumbles the story’s fractured narrative.
Twists are rather badly telegraphed, while many of the character’s motivations seem rather muddled and the actual puzzle-solving somewhat limited. Worst of all the film stops dead three-quarters of the way through, just as the tension is rising, to explore a romantic sub-plot between Langdon and an old flame, which takes about 10 minutes to play out.
To be fair, Hanks is still as a likeable a lead as ever and Howard makes clever use of aural and visual trickery, but with a changed, less-devastating ending than the book and an oddly fractured narrative it is a movie easily forgotten. – James Croot
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