‘Inferno’ review: Shallow entertainment

Almost an hour and a half through the slog that is Ron Howard’s Inferno, we see Professor Langdon (Tom Hanks) on a plane to Turkey. Sitting beside him is a former flame, Elizabeth Sinskey (Sidse Babett Knudsen), who after severing her romantic bonds with the world-famous history geek has risen through the ranks to become a very important person in the World Health Organization (WHO). Langdon, unsurprisingly, blurts out some piece of trivia, probably in an effort to be cute to the girl that got away.

“You talk too much and then not at all,” Sinskey lovingly tells Langdon.

Preposterous tour

The third of a series of movies based on Dan Brown’s best-selling novels, Inferno starts with an injured Langdon inside a hospital room somewhere in Florence, where he wakes up with a serious case of amnesia and is in some sort of danger. All the good professor has are a handful of clues and the assistance of his attending doctor Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), who happens to be quite adept at solving mysteries.

The movie doesn’t waste time dillydallying with useless characterization. It immediately launches its sometimes exhilarating but mostly preposterous tour of some of Italy and Turkey’s most popular tourist attractions. Langdon is visited by an assassin pretending to be a police officer, who chases him and Sienna out of the safety of the hospital and into a labyrinthine story about plagues and messianic millionaires who are far too obsessed with Dante for their own good. (READ: In ‘Inferno,’ Robert Langdon returns: 7 fun facts about the movie) 

Contrivances and conspiracies

Inferno is everything that could be expected of the franchise that turned a rather lackluster university professor into an awkward action hero. It is fueled by contrivances and conspiracy theories that are carved out of random tidbits from some history textbook. Its concept of adventure is limited to museums and castles, uncovering slivers of intrigue from artifacts that have lost their relevance to comic books.

The garbage that Inferno attempts to peddle as fun could have been more tolerable if Howard only had the gall to acknowledge the utter ridiculousness of it all. Unfortunately, he treats Brown’s books like scripture, giving them an air of importance that leaves the film burdened with a responsibility that it simply cannot carry. The film is overlong and unwieldy, with Hanks and almost all of his co-stars trying to make sense of all the nonsense.

Perhaps the only person in the cast who understands the absurdity of the film is Irrfan Khan who deliciously plays Harry Sims, the leader of the security agency that cooks up the ruse that is the ludicrous center of the movie. He adds levity to the overburdened picture, turning his character into the only piece in the movie that is worth rooting for.

Flat and lousy

Inferno is just shallow entertainment.

It has all the elegance and culture in the world as part of its arsenal but only ends up being very flat and lousy. Like talkative Langdon on the plane to Turkey, the film talks too much and then not at all. – Rappler.com 

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema.