An Infernal Waste Of Time

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The cinema I go to is near the sea and so when the wind picks up, it really fucking picks up. The other day I went to see a showing of the new Ron Howard film Inferno and, as the wind got stronger, it managed to find its way into the screen through a vent which could be heard throughout the entire movie as a high-pitched whistling. Or at least I think that's what that noise was?! Because in all honesty from about five minutes in I can't be sure that the sound wasn't actually the dying screams of my brain as the film spent two full hours mercilessly smothering it with a mouldy pillow of dumbness. Apparently this film is the third in the Dan Brown trilogy following on from The Da Vinci Code and Angels And Demons, which I'll admit I haven't actually seen. However from what I hear, Dan Brown is both Brown in name and brown in quality with his series being as shit as Tom Hanks's Da Vinci Code mullet. If that's true then I guess I'm here to report that Inferno hasn't broken that run of bollocks. Imagine the already crap Mission:Impossible 2 if they replaced Ethan Hunt with the boring version of Marcus Brody from Raiders Of The Lost Ark and you're not a million miles away from what this film is. But it's shitter than that... Somehow...

So Inferno begins with a billionaire explaining that there are too many people on the planet and as a result it's now essential that some people die for the rest to live. Considering I had to queue for over five minutes to get into this movie I can't say that he doesn't have a point. As a solution to this, he's created a virus which he predicts will kill about half of our total population allowing humanity to continue on without destroying the planet. How he knows it'll only kill half the population I'm not sure. Surely if we're at a point where half the planet is infected then we're kind of at the point of no return? If you really wanted to kill off half the planet then why fuck about with a virus? Just start selling cheese-coated rat poison and watch the West fall to its fat fucking knees. Anyway on the off chance that this billionaire is killed before unleashing his virus, he decides to hide it and create a series of elaborate clues for somebody to find in order for them to finish his work. Or you know.. he could have just unleashed his fucking virus instead?! If it's ready then why the hell would you piss about by organising an orienteering challenge? Just grab a handful of the fucking poison and then blow it into somebodies face like a horny Victorian with a pocket full of rape-snuff!

So the billionaire does die because too many people are chasing him, and so he's forced to commit suicide to avoid them. Terrorists and other such bad people are trying to get the virus off him in order for them to use it to their own devastating effect. In which case.. so fucking what?! Why does he give a monkey's turd whether it's him that farts his kill powder into a crowd or some fucking lunatic that screams jihad before downing a litre of tiger blood?! As such, Tom Hanks's Dr Robert Langdon is tasked with tracking down the clues that lead to the virus before anybody more dangerous can find it. At one point Hanks meets an old friend that works for the World Health Organisation that informs him that the crazy billionaire had already been to her with an idea. He suggested to her that there were too many people on the planet and that perhaps they should put something into the water supply that would make us all less fertile. Sadly she chucked him out on his arse and as a result he created the virus. Sorry what? That water supply idea isn't such a bad suggestion comparatively so why the fuck didn't he just do that anyway? He tells one person that humans need to stop having so many babies, she's not keen on the idea and so he thinks, “fuck it then I'll just kill three billion people instead”.

Oh and I suppose it's worth noting that Tom Hanks' character begins the film with a head injury that's left him with some amnesia, which is lucky. Although it's not so much Jason Bourne as it is Jason Bored-out-of-my-fucking-skull. Thanks to this injury, Hanks gets to spout out exposition as his memory slowly returns at convenient moments, but it also means that everybody can spout exposition to him when he's forgotten something the audience might be wondering about. Sadly that doesn't involve the answer to the question of, “why is this film so shit?” By suffering from head injuries he also provides a relatable character for everybody watching this movie whether they're finding themselves to be too smart to enjoy it or dumb enough that they do. I mean I've heard of the tortured hero, but as the film stacked up it's idiocy like a wonky game of Jenga, I couldn't help but feel like the tortured fucking audience. At one point he reads an email that says something along the lines of, “I stole a thing that's relevant to the plot”. It then cuts to Hanks face reading this before cutting back for a close up of the word “stole” before going back to Hanks face for him to utter the line, “I stole a thing?!” I mean fucking hell, talk about spelling it out. Not only does this film spoon feed its audience but it does so with the ferocity and force of a prison guard that's been offered a promotion if they can get Bobby Sandes to swallow.

Near the start of the movie the billionaire announces that “there have been five major extinctions since the Earth's creation and humanity is next”. I can only assume that common sense was one of those original five with this film's intelligence being roughly on par with a newborn kitten a few minutes after the sack it was in hit the bottom of the canal. Ron Howard's films have never been of a hugely consistent quality with Frost/Nixon being a high, the stupidly titled Beatles documentary being average, and Inferno representing the absolute dregs. If Dante's version of Hell consists of various levels then I have no doubt in my mind that at least one of them will be showing this movie on a loop for all eternity. At one point here Hanks character utters the phrase, “Look, it's a clue”. And actually there is a clue in the title of this movie that will answer the question of whether or not you should waste your time with it. It can be found in the last two letters of the word Inferno and can be succeeded by the words 'fucking way'. Thanks for reading, motherfuckers, and see you next time.