Review of Inferno (2016) by Junelkean — 23 Jan 2018

In "Inferno," famous professor and symbologist Robert Langdon (Hanks) finds himself uncovering a set of clues which are linked with the great medieval poet Dante Alighieri, after waking up without memories in an Italian hospital. He teams up with Sienna (Jones) to race across Europe and unlock the puzzles revolving around Dante's Inferno, before a deadly global plot wipes out half of humankind.

Hanks and Ron Howard return for the third installment of Dan Brown's trilogy. But just like what as mentioned above, the premise has promise and the intriguing concept of Dante's Inferno and the 9 Circles of Hell sound good on paper. However, on film, Inferno fails to keep the fire burning. It cannot do what it attempts to do. And it gets it all wrong, leaving the audience solve for dumb puzzles out of the unreliable pieces.

It's sometimes thrilling and entertaining, but runs out of spices. Additionally, the film lacks to establish rich characterizations, so when the twist comes, it suddenly feels dumb and nonsense. Perhaps, the writer does not know how recycle them from novel-narrated figures to compelling movie characters.

VERDICT: Hanks and his supporting cast tries to make sense out of the nonsense in Howard's adaptation of Brown's haunting novel.