Review of Inferno (2016) by Axet — 29 Oct 2016

The first two in the series were good (7 or 8 ratings here), and while "The Da Vinci Code" was not received well by many due to its convoluted hard to follow plot, I had no problem since I had read the novel which was really a screenplay waiting to be made like no other book in memory.

This time the plot is so convoluted and the action so fractured and non-linear it just about lost me from the start. I get the whole contrivance of starting with the lead's amnesia, but at a certain point they run the risk of losing the audience which I believe they did here. Needless to probably say, it goes down the typical over formulated Hollywood route in due time and turns one big boring through the motions cliché.

A couple details to point out: there is an African actor and an Indian actor both of whose English is so freaking incoherent that they need sub-titles or should have been over-dubbed! Diversity of casting is fine and the real world, but INTELLIGIBILITY in movies outweighs this bs always! It's surprising someone of Ron Howard's stature let this by. And all the handheld camera work ( just barely passes the subjective POV test) is not welcome. Please Ron, do not be tempted to try to stylize up and ride current "hip" trends which are detrimental to a film overall and ultimately will not fare well down the road and be looked at as dated someday.

Pretty colors and lights in shallow deprh of field shots that appear acquired with newer DSLR type sensor tech makes for "cool" looking visuals, but the audience for these level blockbusters will never ever be satisfied by those touches. Putting new smaller cameras on planes and vehicles for angles never before seen is fine (just about nothing is unseen at this point though, especially with this replication of GoPro tactics), but is about 1/100th the importance of story, structure, logic, pacing, and performance in these kinds of large endeavors. Hitchcock understood this and was a master of that balance.