Inferno is the third film in the series of films based on the popular Dan Brown character Robert Langdon, previously we’ve had The Da Vinci Code (2006) and also Angels & Demons (2009). This film comes directed by Ron Howard who also brought us the other two films in the series as well. It stars Tom Hanks, Ben Foster, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Felicity Jones, Irrfan Khan and Omar Sy.
In this film, Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) wakes up in hospital and can’t remember anything from the last two days. Unfortunately he really does need to remember his last two days because there’s all these people after him trying to kill him. There’s also some mad man who wants to unleash a virus into the world that would be the worst thing since the plague. The mad man wants to do this in order to reduce the world’s population, it’s just too big!
Watching this film, I felt a bit lost with it really. Robert Langdon himself is lost and it does not help at all. Even worse though is that the story is actually very messy and doesn’t seem to have much substance to it at all. For a large part of it, they’re all running around trying to get this face/statue/head from one of the museum’s. It’s some type of clue for something else they need to do in the film and the whole time there’s people with guns trying to get Langdon, but somehow they can’t.
There’s a lot of moments in Inferno where I see the people with guns coming and I think, oh I guess here comes an action scene. But actually there isn’t really any action scenes (except for a bit at the end). Robert Langdon isn’t an action man, he just kind of jogs around and somehow gets away. There are a few characters that get killed here and there, but the characters are so bad that I just didn’t care about a single one of them.
Ron Howard does have a lot of nice films that he’s made I like a lot of them, but this one definitely isn’t one of them. I’m sorry to say, but the film doesn’t really have any substance or great meaning to it. The plot seems to be structured very messily and the action scenes just don’t really do anything at all. There’s a slight mystery with uncovering the villain and there’s even a very shocking twist towards the end with the reveal that one of the characters is a villain, but even with that in there as well, it’s just not that great. Inferno might have the problem of having too many characters with a lot of short scenes and because it’s meant to be a film where things are mysterious, it really leaves the viewer a bit lost with it.
The actors are mostly unknown names, but it does have Tom Hanks in there. Tom Hanks is usually good, but in this he wasn’t that great. His character didn’t really have much to do other than try to remember what happened and then try solve a mystery, it’s an average performance from him really. I got the strange feeling that this was made more for just getting another good paycheck and not for being a great film. The rest of the actors are okay, but I don’t know if any are memorable in this though.
Overall I would say to possibly not go out and watch Inferno this weekend. Unless you are truly a super big fan of this film series and simply must go watch it. But otherwise, I’m certain most will have a mediocre experience with watching this at the cinema this week unfortunately. The performances aren’t that great, the story is messy and the action scenes aren’t great either, I’m not sure what in Inferno is great is to be honest.
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