Inferno

There is no "Professor Langdon? We need you!" moment to kick off Inferno, the latest adaptation of Dan Brown's symbologist. Dropping us right into the mix, Langdon (Hanks) wakes in a Florentine hospital with a gunshot wound to the head, which explains his inability to recall the last forty eight hours and why he's suffering from hallucinations. Doctor Brooks (Jones) does what she can to fill him in before she helps him flee an assassin. Who is trying to kill him why? Is the World Health Organisation involved? It turns out that billionaire Bertrand Zobrist (Foster), fearing overpopulation will destroy humanity inside one hundred years, is planning to unleash a virus that will cull half the world's population and Langdon might know where the virus is stored… if he could only remember.

Three Dan Brown adaptations in and Howard and Koepp haven't addressed the big problem at the heart of this franchise: their hero, Robert Langdon, is an empty vessel. A nothing character, there's little to emphasise with or endear him to the audience. Sure, the character is played by Tom Hanks and we love Tom Hanks - he's Josh, Captain Miller, Forrest, Woody – but that's the only emotional connection to this suited man (who doesn't seem to sweat or tire) pelting it down many a pretty Italian side street. Koepp injects something akin to backstory and heart with about half an hour to go but he and Howard set their stall out with The Da Vinci Code back in 2006: they are here to link puzzles only and Hanks' natural charisma be damned.

And these are stories to be read, not watched. Despite the chases and the locations the three movies aren't visual and regardless of how many close calls and brushes with death are offered here there's no zip to the episodic proceedings; with one riddle leading to another and on and on, the plot unfolds like watching someone unknown person work their way through levels in a game. Howard can toss the camera around with wild abandon and insert as many witchy hallucinations as he wants but the end result is going to be the same: a disconnection from the characters and a lack of immersion in the story.

There are too many questions. Aside from why signal its inevitable twist so early, why come up with a plan to halve the world’s population, an ideal Zobrist believes is worth dying for, and then leave clues in Dante's work that will most definitely lead to its unveiling before time? And Zobrist's reasoning is questionable: "The Black Death gave us a leaner population, which gave us the Renaissance." What? WHAT? Surely I misheard that.

But wait, it's not all bad. Irrfan Khan brings his expected class to the one of the bad guys and those side streets look nice.