Inferno

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Inferno is directed by Ron Howard, stars Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones, and is based off the novel by Dan Brown. It is the third film in the Robert Langdon series. In this film, Langdon (played once again by Tom Hanks) teams up with a doctor that was treating him (played by Felicity Jones) to solve a code involving Dante’s Inferno (hence the title). Amidst all of this, Langdon is recovering from retro-grade amnesia. While they weren’t perfect movies, I actually enjoyed The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons. Inferno, on the other hand, lacks the competent direction of the previous two films in the series. The look and quality is kind of cheap. Normally, Ron Howard is a fantastic director. Here, he tends to lean on confusing images and unbelievably ugly shaky cam. This comes from the same man who directed Cocoon, Apollo 13, and A Beautiful Mind. The writing here feels the weakest, and strands a great cast genuinely trying to give good performances in the middle of a subpar thriller that lacks overall intrigue. Part of this comes from taking away one of the things that was incredibly interesting in the first two movies. Langdon was the type of character who used his mind to figure things out. Here, he doesn’t really have that, and Hanks’s skills as one of the greatest actors of all time are overshadowed by bad writing. The twist at the end of the movie was horrible, easily one of my absolute least favorite twist endings of all time. Overall, despite a good cast that is trying, the writing and directing bog the rest of the movie down, making for a dull, lifeless, soulless movie with a terrible twist ending that pales in comparison to its predecessors, which is saying quite a bit. 

3 / 10