When Director Ron Howard participated in an interview about the movie, he mentioned how difficult it was to remain faithful to the source material while pleasing Hollywood execs. Sadly, “Inferno” falls victim to this tug-of-war as the movie disregards pertinent aspects that made the book great.
Professor Robert Langdon comes back as the titular character who always finds himself using his knowledge of art history to solve a problem that could have a major effect in the entire world. Here, it is a mad scientist who believes the earth is in need of another plague.
Tom Hanks once again plays Langdon and pulls off the coat with elbow patches professor look with ease. Felicity Jones as Sienna Brooks was great casting, and the always great Ben Foster as Bertrand Zobrist is believable as the villain.
The book introduces us to the code name “FS-2080” as the partner to the antagonist Bertrand Zobrist, who wants to solve overpopulation by sending out a virus that would affect everyone on earth. The code name plays a prominent role, as it reveals a jaw dropping plot twist that left me stunned. Jonathan Ferris is an agent for The Consortium, yet we don’t know if he is trustworthy. Eventually, we deduce that FS-2080 is Ferris, followed by a soliloquy of FS-2080’s love and dedication to Zobrist.
Several chapters later, however, this soliloquy repeats, except Sienna Brooks revealed it was she who was working and had an affair with Zobrist. Dan Brown masterfully deceives the reader and strategically uses the code name so that we believe Ferris is FS-2080.
Unfortunately, the movie does not translate this, as the verbal love letter towards Zobrist, as Howard discarded this altogether. Because of this, Sienna’s big revelation did not have the same dramatic effect.
The other drastic change was the ending, where Zobrist succeeds in his plan to release the virus. He did so a week earlier, where a third of the world’s population becomes sterile. What I loved about this was that the diabolical plan was successful, but it did not involve murdering billions of people. You could identify with the antagonist, as his viewpoint is not pure evil.
In the movie, the virus is supposed to be spread using a bomb, which would cause collateral damage. Langdon heroically prevents this, at the relief of police authorities. With this different ending, the Hollywood execs were also relieved as they got their formulaic ending to pad their wallets. What I’m confused by, though, is how do they decide that the protagonist “saving the day” makes for a better ending financially? I feel the audience has gotten smarter when it comes to movies, and sticking with the original ending would not have affected their bottom line.