Symbologist Robert Langdon has returned, but this time he has woken in a hospital bed with partial amnesia and a bad headache. Langdon (Tom Hanks) finds himself in a hospital bed in Florence. He has no recollection of how he got a head wound or why he is in the Italian city. The doctor in charge, Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), is Langdon’s only connection to what has transpired and the one person who can tell him why there are shooters on his tail.
Director Ron Howard is back to directing Hanks as the globetrotting code breaker as created by bestselling author Dan Brown. In Inferno, the third outing after The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, Langdon embarks on a quest with Sienna’s help to solve the Seek and Find riddle and the connection between Italian poet Dante Aligheri, the dead billionaire Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster) and the World Health Organisation, which is also chasing Langdon. In fact, a large number of people seem to want Langdon dead, among them a shady consortium led by Harry “The Provost” Sims (Irrfan in a substantial role).
Unlike the previous books and films, the Langdon-Brooks partnership quickly solves the clues and speedily flits between Florence, Venice and Istanbul. The hunt is for a deadly virus designed to cull the vastly over-populated planet. There is hardly any razzle-dazzle riddle solving, and the clues within Botticelli’s art works are underwhelming, as is this thriller. In fact, barring an intriguing opening and a few nicely executed scenes in Italy, Inferno is a strained attempt to capitalise on Robert Langdon’s popularity and a far cry from the fast-paced and edge-of-the-seat stuff we have come to expect from the Brown-Howard-Hanks combine.
