Directed by: Ron Howard
Starring: Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan, Ben Foster
Rated PG-13, 121 minutes
Just when you thought you’d figured out Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon thrillers, it turns out you were completely right. A chase scene, a puzzle that requires knowledge of Renaissance art, another chase scene, a betrayal, and why not, let’s throw in a chase scene. Lather, rinse, repeat.
So we have “Inferno,” the latest installment of the thriller series made for the sort of people who correct their friends’ grammar. Tom Hanks (“Sully”) reprises his role as Robert Langdon, claustrophobic and bookish professor of religious symbology, who begins his new adventure auspiciously by waking up in the emergency room with head trauma and amnesia. Accompanying him is Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones, “The Theory of Everything”), the ER doctor who saves his life when assassins come looking for him. Piecing together clues and partial memories, they realize they must locate a deadly virus created by the eccentric and recently deceased billionaire Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster, “Hell or High Water”), who argued that the only way to save humanity from overcrowding itself to death was by culling the population with a plague. Meanwhile, WHO agent Christoph Bouchard (Omar Sy, “The Intouchables”) and private security fixer Harry Sims (Irrfan Khan, “Life of Pi”) are tailing Langdon and Brooks, though to what ends the professor can only guess, given his amnesia, the pressure to save humanity, and recurring visions of the apocalypse. And you thought your hangover was bad!
In a series that in previous installments (“The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels and Demons”) has felt like an excuse for Ron Howard and Tom Hanks to blow off some steam, “Inferno” is surprisingly masochistic. The first half hour is especially jarring, as Langdon’s grogginess and horrifyingly surreal nightmares get the better of him. Howard treats these sequences with fervor, employing quick cuts, erratic focus, grotesque sounds, and intense closeups to beat us over the head with the horror of it all. And Hanks brings an unusually pathetic self-deprecation to Langdon, suggesting that saving the world from bioterrorism isn’t quite so glorious if you unintentionally distance yourself from the people around you.
Howard is, as always, adept at bringing quality performances out of his stars; source material that gives all its players motive and clarity certainly helps. Irrfan Khan stands out, relishing his role as a matter-of-fact businessman with an intimidating self-assuredness, while Omar Sy and Felicity Jones turn in believable work, juggling their characters’ oft-changing motives and allegiances well. On the other hand, Ben Foster’s performance as the megalomaniacal Zobrist, whose actions form the crux of the whole plot, feels like little more than the TED Talk from the Black Lagoon.
It’s not his fault, though. The problem with Zobrist, which becomes the problem for the whole movie, is that his grand plan is amateurish, devised using the same sort of self-satisfied logic that shows up in uninformed Facebook posts that cite conspiracy theory blogs as sources. It’s a shame, because all of Ron Howard’s directorial finesse and all of Tom Hanks’s gravitas are as good as wasted when put to work in service of a stupid theme. Howard spends two hours masterfully combining image and sound and montage to tell a ruthlessly complex story in an accessible way, and for what? So that the antagonists can monologue during the climax about “the greater good”? And if a movie has to revolve around such a tired notion, there should at least be some reckoning with it after the dust has settled, but no such luck here. All we get in terms of resolution is a gag involving incredulous museum curators, which is cute, sure, but disappointingly indecisive.
Then again, the Robert Langdon movies and books were never meant to answer, or even ask, the big questions. Like trivia night at a bar, they answer the little questions, offer fun facts, and give you a reason to spend some money and learn a couple of tidbits that you’ll forget in a day or two. At least you can win prizes at trivia night.
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 11/4/16.