British Actress Blog

Inferno (2016)

Score: 7/10

Director: Ron Howard

Stars: Felicity Jones, Tom Hanks, Ben Foster.

Inferno

Felicity Jones

Synopsis: When Robert Langdon wakes up in an Italian hospital with amnesia, he teams up with Dr. Sienna Brooks, and together they must race across Europe against the clock to foil a deadly global plot.

Review: So this movie talks about how terrible us humans are destroying everything, from the environment to entire animal species and the sad thing is that the movie is not wrong. Bertrand Zobrist ( Ben Foster ) says the typical ‘Human Over Population’ speech we have all heard before. As if he is the only one who has ever thought of this stuff Some might think that he is a fool for thinking that he can actually change the world, The interesting part is that he might be able to do it. The movie has a similar story line to other films and video games such as Syphon Filter and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six (original) where the final bad guy says the same dialog almost word for word from the opening speech in this movie, Inferno. The film Tomb Raider the Cradle of Life (2003) has the same theme. There are countless movies that focuses on Ebola or something of the effect as a means of cleansing the world and it would be impossible for me to list them all here. Lets just say that this is by no means a new story concept and it is usually chosen by B-movie directors, so its interesting to see a top notch A-list director like Ron Howard choosing this theme over a another Dan Brown story like ‘The Lost Symbol’. The number one problem with a story like this is that it is extremely predicable. Its been done to death actually.

Sienna Brooks

Felicity Jones

So we have yet another movie with Tom Hanks running around Europe with a brunette wearing dark clothes. Gee, I feel like I’ve seen this twice already. So I guess that’s just Robert Langdon’s thing? In the Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons? Tom Hanks does a lot of running for an old guy in these movies, but the studio is paying him millions to run around yelling so I can’t say I blame him for taking these parts. This film is about taking away the special abilities of the hero and forcing the hero to face his or her challenges using everything they have in order to achieve victory. The problem with stories like this is that the audience would rather see their hero at their best when facing challenges. Final battles are better when the hero is at their full capacity. Felicity Jones is as magnificent as ever. Its no wonder she is one of the absolute best British Actresses. Her character doesn’t make any sense at all until you keep watching the movie. I won’t give anything away here as to not spoil the movie. She plays a daring character just like Jyn Erso in ROUGE ONE (2016). She is just simply amazing.

How a Pathogen

can spread

The film focuses on the concepts of fanaticism, death, and the cycle of life. There are many examples through out the film where death has saved some one’s life. The character Bertrand Zobrist wants to eliminate half the worlds population in order to ‘save’ humanity from over population and the up and coming wars for resources. Make no mistake, this maybe a scenario real that humanity faces in the future. Its less of a problem for us right now. Bertrand Zobrist also proposes the case for humanities destruction of the planet in the form of pollution and humans being responsible for the extinction of many of the world animal species. He says that the next extinction event will be the elimination of the human species. There are a lot of people who speak this way in real life. The fanaticism concept is like a religion to the charters in this movie. Religious fanaticism is not new at all, but it does exist. From what we see in this movie, some one can believe so intently that their way of thinking is so correct, that they are willing to do something extremely nefarious. They can make them selves believe that what they are doing is the right thing for the right reasons. Its believed by these characters that the way to save humanity is to engage in death. With fewer people on the planet, more recourses will be available to the survivors and less damage will be done to the environment. If the environment is saved right now, it won’t be too late for the human species. For these reasons, Bertrand Zobrist creates the virus known as ‘Inferno’ to wipe out half the humans off of the earth.

Amazing Job!

Felicity Jones

Interesting movie. Its not the best of the Robert Langdon film series, but it is a better made film than the previous movies. The movie wastes no time at all putting your right in he story. The pacing is a little slower than the Angels and Demons movie, which is a good thing since that movie’s pacing was too fast. The cinematography is excellent which is not surprising for director Ron Howard. He is one of the absolute best after all. This film goes in depth into the mind of the character Robert Langdon much more than the other films. I can see that Ron Howard has taken constructive criticism from the previous films and made this a better paced and structured film here with Inferno. The Da Vinci Code was slow and awkward at times. Angels and Demons had speed and pacing issues, but this film is well balanced. Not bad, its a good weekend watch.

Recent Posts