A review of last year’s film “Inferno”
This is the third cinematic outing for Robert Langdon, the fictional character created by the best-selling author Dan Jones. Previously we’ve had “The Da Vinci Code” (2006) and “Angels & Demons” (2009). Now (2016) he’s back played again by Tom Hanks with Ron Howard again in the director’s chair but a new female accomplice, the British actress Felicity Jones.
The stakes are absurdly high: a visionary wants to recalibrate humankind by wiping out half of it – that’s approaching 4 billion people – with a deadly virus that can only be tracked down by decoding all sorts of messages relating to Dante and the Inferno.
I found the film visually appealling because the action takes us from Florence to Venice to Istanbul and I’ve been to all three cities and visited all the buildings featured in the plot. But it’s all very silly with dialogue full of portentous declarations about cultural artefacts, lots of running around by the principal actors, and regular twists in which the good guy/girl becomes the bad guy/girl and vice versa.
Just leave your brain to one side and try to enjoy the ride.