Professor Robert Langdon returns to solve puzzles pointing towards a biological weapon in Inferno. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) wakes up in a hospital bed in Florence, Italy, which no recollection how he go there. Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) tells him that he is suffering from amnesia following a blow to the head. After an armed assassin attacks the hospital, Langdon and Sienna go on the run and try to piece together the events of the previous 48 hours. They quickly deduce that radical geneticist Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster) created a virus named Inferno that could bring about the extinction of the human race. The two deduce clues influenced by the works of the poet Dante to track down the location of the virus, before it infects the population.
Ron Howard directs this third adaptations of Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon novels, following The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons. Inferno has Langdon suffering from amnesia, which results in him not being able to remember the previous few days. He teams up with former child prodigy Sienna Brooks to unravel a complicated puzzle that will lead to the location of a killer violence. The two are pursued along the way by a number of individuals such as French World Health Organization agent Christoph Bouchard (Omar Sy) and Henry Sims (Irrfan Khan), the head of a mysterious organization.
Dan Brown’s 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code was a huge success and resulted in a highly anticipated film adaptation in 2006, which was successful enough to be followed up by an adaptation of Brown’s earlier novel Angels & Demons in 2009. Now after a wait of seven years, and completely skipping over Brown’s 2009 novel The Lost Symbol, director Ron Howard and star Tom Hanks reunite for this adaptation of 2013’s Inferno.
While little more than pulpy thrillers, these Robert Langdon adventures have been notable for their mix of history and puzzle solving.While both The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons had heavily religious themes, Inferno focuses heavily on the Italian poet Dante, specifically his description of hell from Divine Comedy. In fact, Inferno features Robert Langdon having repeated hallucinations of a hellish world, which admittedly comes off as a bit wonky, especially the poor CGI used for some of the visuals. However, the film does even out somewhat, even though it’s now glaringly obvious that Dan Brown’s stories all follow a similar formula, whether it be the exotic locations or the allegiances of certain characters.
When it is all said and done, Inferno is nowhere near as intriguing as either The Da Vinci Code or Angels & Demons. That said, the film is still a perfectly fine thriller.
FAIR