Inferno for “Inferno.” Never has a trailer been so misleading. The Robert Langdon thriller series has a repeated plot like the “Bourne” series, except that it is not good.
Viewers expected “Inferno” to be the best film of the Robert Langdon trilogy, but the movie fails to top its predecessors “Angels & Demons” and “The Da Vinci Code.”
The premise of the movie is as follows: Robert Langdon, played by Tom Hanks (“Sully”) and Dr. Sienna Brooks, played by Felicity Jones (“True Story”), escape a hospital to go to Sienna’s apartment to flee Vayentha, played by Ana Ularu (“Serena”), who tries to assassinate Langdon. Secondary antagonist Bertrand Zobrist, played by Ben Foster (“Hell or High Water”), is a billionaire who plans to destroy half of the world’s population with a virus. Langdon and Sienna follow clues to find a way to stop the virus.
With an exciting plot and mind-blowing trailer, the final product is not what was expected. The movie feels as if it is never going to end. It is just a run of endless hide-and-seek scenes. Langdon repeatedly looks for clues, like he does in each movie, but it appears this scavenger hunt will be infinite.
Foster is a fan favorite who makes a short appearance in the film. Zobrist (Foster) manipulates the minds of millions of people and his fans to make him sound like a hero when in disguise he is trying to eliminate half of the world’s population. Although Zobrist is an antagonist, film series fans will wish he had more screen time.
Jones is never a disappointment in her movies and her role and acting is no reason for the movie’s failure.
Meanwhile, Hanks is an actor with mixed followers. Hanks played a boring protagonist that deserves to have more emotion. Hanks’ character is too bland, Tom Cruise would do a better job in his position, or to keep it safe, Jake Gyllenhaal could have played Langdon. The movie is part a series of however, and the same actor has to be kept as the main protagonist.
One thing that director Ron Howard does not fail to do is give viewers thrilling jump scares. The jump scares are one of the few successes in the movie.
“Inferno” was not the best book in the series and generally is regarded as an average book. The film trilogy is not as good as the book series. An average book only signifies the quality of the film adaptation of “Inferno.” The book is full of suspense and is better written than the film’s screenplay. Even though the book is not the best, it is still better detailed and has more information than the film.
A series that has never done amazing should have thought twice about having Howard as director and Hanks as the protagonist. Hanks’ character is and has always been boring in the series. This may be Hanks’ worst performance and worst movie to date. Howard fails to capture emotion equal to the books.
Whether Howard will return for an adaptation of “The Lost Symbol” or upcoming book “Origin” is still unknown. Movie buffs hope for a change of director.
