Inferno

We all know and love Ron Howard for his films including Ransom, Willow and Splash just to name a few. Then we get his adaption on Dan Brown’s famous Robert Langdon novels centring on conspirers, murder and fine art. Many were mixed on The Da Vinci Code while Angels and Demons had a slightly better reception. So I was hopeful this could be the better film adaption of the series and that Ron Howard had learnt from his mistakes.

Well I had hoped.

We see the return of Dr Langdon played by Tom Hanks with a new adventure filled with even more bloodshed, mystery and higher stakes. The film centres on the story of billionaire Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), who sets out to save humanity from itself by releasing a biological agent that will wipe out half of the world’s population. After his death at the beginning of the film, a chain reaction of events begins and it’s up to Langdon and his new companion to stop the virus and save the world.

Inferno takes a massive step forward in terms of narrative as the consequences are greater while it integrates interesting themes from Dante’s Devine Comedy – Inferno. This does advance the nature of the film, making it darker, intense and gritty. All the right elements are here from the fantastic actors, an interesting plot and darker themes to break it away from the previous two films. But how did Ron Howard handle the delivery?

The kindest way I can describe the film is messy. From start to film this film is a mess with the rushed editing, confusing flash backs themes and a screenplay that was all over the place. To break it down, the first 20 minutes are a complete headache, as we see Tom Hanks wake up in hospital after he is attacked. He has no memory of past events and is receiving horrific visions of people burning alive, boiling in lakes of blood and demonic creatures. It can work to set the right ton for the movie but the main problem is the editing is awful as it’s so rushed and awkwardly paced. This just confuses and never let the feeling of dread sink in.

After this introduction, the pacing regains a sense of control and the film sets out to deliver a new mystery. But yet again we run into another problem, the sense of mystery and lateral elements are extremely watered down with a lack of imagination or creativity. There’s sadly no complexity to the world or the clues left behind. The first two films made it so Dr Langdon was the man with the mind capable of decrypting the codes, but here you don’t feel that and this time round I’m sure anyone could figure these clues out. So this does make it difficult to invest into the film as the engaging elements from the previous two films are gone and replaced with overly simplistic.

The screenplay also works against the film’s pacing as it’s broken up into confusing flash backs and weak plot twists you can see a mile away. Trust me, you can see the “shocking” twist coming a mile away. It tries to keep things interesting by introducing multiple factions who want the virus but the films just becomes more bloated and the stronger elements are pushed to one side. Ben Foster’s as the villain was a great choice and his logic was disturbing enough to make him a compelling antagonist. But he is killed off too soon and only brought back in random flash backs or pre-recorded videos. There’s a flash back of him eating in a café and discussing what he said at the beginning of film again without adding anything new.

I think Ben Foster is great in Inferno and I guess the producers or Howard thought the same so they included these pointless flashbacks. It did overall disjoint the films progression which was already cluttered and broken enough as it is. Aside from Foster Tom Hanks was strong even though he looked a little tired and bloated during the film. My favourite was Irrfan Khan as the sinister and dead pan head of the secret organisation that wanted to obtain the virus. He’s the main injection of humour and with a deadpan delivery was the best thing in the film. But again due the film’s pacing, he’s usually left to side line while other characters with less appeal take front stage.

While the actors were good I must also praise Hans Zimmer for his brilliant soundtrack as it did wonders to make the scenes more alive and the climax was nerve wrecking with his dramatic score.

Overall, Inferno is a setback for the series with its poor editing, pacing and lack of interest in the narrative. I don’t blame Ron as I see David Koepp wrote the awful screenplay and made a complete mess of it. This film does fall behind Angel and Demons and is on par with the original film. But while the first film is a snooze fest, it had more compelling elements that made sense and kept you guessing. Inferno is what you might say is the final circle of Hell.