Inferno

Ron Howard’s third (and weakest) stab at a Dan Brown adaptation, Inferno follows Tom Hanks’ Robert Langdon as he and an emergency-room doctor (Felicity Jones’ Sienna Brooks) team up to prevent a catastrophic global plot designed to wipe out more than half of the world’s population. It’s instantly clear that Howard, along with returning screenwriter David Koepp, has learned nothing from the relative failure of both The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, as Inferno, for the most part, chugs along at a lackadaisical pace that’s compounded by an overlong running time and surfeit of underwhelming subplots. (There is, in terms of the latter, a terminally tedious storyline involving Omar Sy’s tenacious pursuing cop, Christoph.) The spinning-its-wheels atmosphere persists for much of Inferno‘s midsection, which seems to consist entirely of sequences wherein Hanks and Jones’ respective characters attempt to figure out a clue and run from bad guys. It’s a formula that’s repeated over and over and grows increasingly tiresome as time slowly progresses, with the movie’s less-than-engrossing vibe compounded by a lack of compelling action sequences. (The only real exception to this comes near the beginning, as Howard offers up an exciting hospital escape/street pursuit that ultimately stands as a high point.) Hanks’ solid yet stiff performance is, in the end, emblematic of everything that’s wrong with Inferno, as the film’s overly serious feel is completely at odds with the fun, fast-paced tone of Brown’s page-turner – with, especially, the dull third act ensuring that the movie ends on as anti-climactic a note as one could envision.

** out of ****