Burned Again

Inferno Reviwed

I was shocked-SHOCKED- that they were making another Robert Langdon/Dan Brown based movie. Everyone can agree that The DaVinci Code novel was a worldwide phenomenon selling over 80 million copies. The movie enjoyed similar financial success, with the $125-million-dollar film making almost double that in the box office. However, the movie was panned by audiences and critics alike, getting a Rotten Tomato score of 25%. The next movie, Angels and Demons made $133 million at the box office but the budget for the movie was $150 million, and the Rotten Tomatoes score did go up, but only to 37%. So why make another? Because the books are still successful. Each Robert Langdon book has been on the New York Times bestseller list for over 10 weeks, including the latest in the series, so clearly something is working. So what's a studio to do? Well, they cut their budget in half to see if that would make a difference in their profits.
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Tom Hanks is back as Robert Langdon, but the character is not himself. Inferno opens with Langdon in the hospital because he has amnesia. But he needs to get better fast because he is once again being called upon to save the world, this time not from organized religion but from a bioengineering billionaire who believes we are on the cusp of an overpopulation crisis, and the only way to solve the problem is to kill half of the world's population.

At least Tom Hank's haircut is marginally less distracting this time around

Inferno couldn't be a more by the numbers plot if it tried. I guarantee you have seen this movie 1000 times before. It's like a combination of National Treasure and ‘insert amnesia-based movie here.’ Better yet, it's exactly like the other Robert Langdon/Dan Brown movies that came before it. At no point did I ever think, “Man, I don’t know how Langdon is going to get out trouble this time.” There are no stakes to the plot, and it's impossible to feel for your protagonist because you’ll never worry about the outcome. You can't even try and play along with Langdon, who is once again trying to follow the clues and solve the puzzle. The story uses cheap tricks like amnesia or companies that specialize in cover-ups to explain away the more convoluted plot points. This isn't interesting or dramatic; it’s lazy storytelling.

For all the ways they tried to ruin the story there are a couple twists I didn’t see coming. And I couldn’t say a bad word about Tom Hanks if I tried, especially not after he gave the world David Pumpkin. So there were moments of the movie I enjoyed, but it wasn’t enough to save the movie.

​People weren't exactly lining up to see Tom Hanks back in a bad haircut for Angels and Demons, and I can't imagine that they'll come back to see Inferno. For whatever reason, Inferno tries to recapture the frantic nature of the original movie, but the first movie wasn’t even that good, so why try going back to that well? There are conspiracies; there are cover-ups, but there's no meat to any of it. Even the staunchest Obama birther will watch this movie and go, "Isn't this a little convoluted?" yes Uncle Robert, it is. F