“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their silence at times of crisis.”
If I had to name some of my favourite authors, the names that would come to mind are Stephen King, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Rick Riordan, Lemony Snicket, and Dan Brown. And it will be that last author, Dan Brown, whose novel Inferno and its 2016 film adaptation I will be discussing today. Dan Brown writes mystery-thrillers, with most of his novels being based in "history" and revolving around Harvard Symbology professor Robert Langdon. It was actually through Dan Brown's novels that my interest in history really began to bloom (along with high school history) and he, along with Stephen King, was the author who inspired me to begin writing. Dan Brown's books are exciting and very well written with "history" integrated well into the plot of the novel.
However, I will admit that Dan Brown's books do have some problems. The foremost problem is that although his novels are do have historical basis to their plots, some of the historical facts he provides is fairly iffy. From what I can tell, there are parts of it that aren't quite historically accurate and apparently some things are entirely made up to work with the plot and a lot of people do claim that he basically takes conspiracy theories and inserts them into history, occasionally altering a facts to fit (which can be frustrating since Dan Brown claims his books are all grounded in actual history). But to be honest, considering the books are conspiracy theory books that are interwoven with history, I don't always take everything at point value; it may not work best as a historical fiction, but it's a damn enjoyable thriller. He's also apparently not very good at prose writing and he does pad his books out quite often by describing the guns people are using, but he does develop some very good and exiciting plots; the plots are so good in fact that you tend to overlook some mediocre writing and I do like simple page turner novels.
However, a big problem I do have with Dan Brown is that his books are extremely formulaic: Robert Langdon gets called to some place by an important person, gets involved in some conspiracy that'll involve history and symbology, travel around some city looking for art pieces with clues with a female companion, the antagonist will turn out to be someone that Langdon trusted, and no one except for a few side characters we didn't care much about will die and no meaningful development will happen. The books honestly are so predictable that you can sort of predict what's going to happen to some degree. Not to mention that all of his characters don't tend to be very complex. Pretty much all of his major characters are kind of two dimensional and not the most interesting. Even Robert Langdon isn't all that interesting apart from his eidetic memory, but he's just too much of a perfect hero with no faults, and the fact that he has no character flaws (apart from the occasional fear of enclosed spaces that barely gets brought up significantly) kind of annoys me sometimes because it IS boring to read about the "perfect hero".
That being said, I still love Dan Brown as an author. No matter what his flaws are, I think that he can still develop an interesting and exciting plot, and even though he does make up a lot of "history", he does it well enough that it makes sense in the context of the story. I just felt like I had to adress this bit because apparently he does get a lot of hate that I can understand, but not agree with. Like I get that he claims his fake history is real can be annoying and that his books are formulaic, but to be honest, those issues don't matter to me cause his books are exciting and great page turners. Like I wouldn't consider them anything groundbreaking like J.R.R. Tolkien or even Stephen King, but his books are entertaining enough to make him one of my favourite authors.
Dan Brown's works have been adapted into films three times in total, centred around Harvard Symbology (which I was disappointed to find out that it was NOT a real degree) Professor Robert Langdon (portrayed by Tom Hanks in the films) and all three films (The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and Inferno) have been directed by Ron Howard. Today, I will be reviewing the film Inferno and comparing it to how it held up against the book. Neither the book or the movie are my favourite of Dan Brown's works or its movie adaptations, but I read & watched it recently, so I will be reviewing it.
Inferno primarily takes place in Florence, Italy, although they eventually go to Venice and later Istanbul, Turkey. It revolves with the idea of overpopulation, population control, and has a plague motif surrounding it. As suggested by the title, the book and the movie draws from Dante Alighieri's poem "Inferno", the first part of the 14th century epic Divine Comedy. In "Inferno", Dante (who happens to be the protagonist of the poem) journeys through hell and sees the different levels of punishment; a big part of the story revolves around Dante's "Inferno" and hell.
Plot Synopsis
The general plot is somewhat kept, although there are few major plot changes between the book and the movie that I honestly didn't like.
Robert Langdon wakes up in a hospital in Florence with constant nightmare/visions of a hellish landscape and no recollection of the events of the last few days, believing himself to be still in America. In his visions he sees a veiled woman who repeats the words "seek and find" and he has been murmuring "Ve... sorry" in his sleep. His attending doctors are Dr. Sienna Brooks and Dr. Marconi. Sienna reveals that he has a bullet wound to the head, which is likely what is causing Langdon's amnesia. Suddenly, a woman in a police uniform named Vayentha enters the hospitals and kills Dr. Marconi. Sienna and Langdon escape the hospital and returns to Sienna's apartment.
Langdon finds a cylinder with a biohazard sign in his jacket that opens to his thumbprint. The cylinder contains a Faraday pointer (a small image projector) that projects an image of Botticelli's Map of Hell, a rendering of Dante's poem "Inferno" (explaining his visions). Meanwhile Langdon and Sienna call the US Consulate who claims they have been looking for him and wants to rendez-vous with him; as a test, Langdon gives them the address of a hotel nearby, only then to see Vayentha arrive at the hotel. Convinced that the US government is trying to kill Langdon, they decide to go solo. Langdon realizes that Botticelli's painting has been modified to include letters which form the message "cerca trova" (meaning "seek and ye shall find"). A team of soldiers and the police arrive at Sienna's apartment, having tracked Langdon down after he had accessed his email.
The two manages to evade the soldiers and head to the Palazzo Vecchio, as the Palazzo contains the painting The Battle of Marciano by Vasari (explaining "Ve... sorry") which contains the words "cerca trova". They manage to sneak into the Palazzo by the garden and encounters Marta Alvarez, a worker who is pregnant. Marta recognizes Langdon from his visit with Ignazio Busoni, the director of Il Duomo yesterday. Marta informs them that Langdon and Ignazio were fixated on Dante Alighieri's death mask. She takes the two up to see the mask, but is shocked to discovered the mask missing. In the security room, it is revealed that Langdon and Ignazio had stolen the mask the day before.
Langdon and Sienna escapes and encounters Vayentha, who tries to assure that she is trying to help Langdon but is pushed to her death by Sienna. Langdon and Sienna follows Ignazio's clues that he left before his death via heart attack to a church where the mask is hidden. They learn that the mask is owned by the man named Bertrand Zobrist, a geneticist and an advocate of population control who had committed suicide a few days before. They meet up with a man who claims to be from the World Health Organization.
With the WHO agent, Langdon and Sienna follows the clue left on the mask to Venice. Sienna and Langdon leaves the WHO agent they met behind, believing him to be their enemy. Langdon and Sienna learn that whatever they're looking for is in Budapest. They are eventually seen by soldiers who have been chasing them, but Sienna leaves Langdon behind to be captured, revealing that she was Bertrand Zobrist's lover all along and have been planning to fulfill Zobrist's master plan.
Langdon is captured by the soldiers and is eventually taken to WHO and its director Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey (who is revealed to be the veiled woman in Langdon's dreams). She explains to him that Bertrand Zobrist has created a biological weapon named "INFERNO" in a water soluble bag that will release on a certain date. This weapon is a disease of some sort meant to control population and has hidden it somewhere with the help of a private security company known as the Consortium (its name in the books). Zobrist had also sent WHO the Faraday Pointer as a clue to this bioweapon and WHO had recruited Langdon to find this bioweapon and he had solved it all, had stolen the death mask before getting amnesia. The Consortium's leader had received a video from Zobrist before his death that was to be released on a specific date. They had caused Langdon's amnesia to stop him from finding the weapon before deciding to turn the video over to the WHO in the hopes of stopping it. It is revealed that Vayentha was an employee of the Consortium who had been ordered to bring Langdon in so that he could work with WHO; Dr. Marconi's "murder" was all planned and Sienna Brooks was simply supposed to play the part of the doctor, but she had gone rogue and Vayentha's role was to stop her and bring her in to WHO custody. They realize that Sienna had always planned on going rogue by tricking Langdon into revealing the location of the bioweapon so she could detonate it earlier.
Realizing that Budapest is where the weapon was placed, Langdon and WHO rush to Budapest in hopes of stopping it.
And that's where the plot stops being similar. The ending is actually completely changed, along with some important characters and plot points. I much preferred the novel in terms of these differences and I will be discussing some of the details they got right in the next section, followed by everything the got wrong (which is quite a lot).
The Loyal Factors
The central characters were adapted well enough. Robert Langdon's symbology expertise, Harris tweed jacket, and his Mickey Mouse watch are all key parts of Langdon's character. Sienna Brooks being a child prodigy and Bertrand Zobrist's lover who had been helping Langdon just so she could release Zobrist's supervirus herself is accurate. Bertrand Zobrist's message of the dangers of overpopulation and the need for population control and his subsequent deploying of the virus and suicide is present in both the book and the movie. The Consortium in the book and the movie is a mysterious company who provides Zobrist with protection but later cooperates with WHO to stop the virus from being released.
The movie does keep to the general plot points of the novel: Langdon wakes up in Florence with his memory gone, teams up with Sienna to stop a virus from being released, goes to Vienna, Sienna betrays Langdon, and then they go to Budapest. Every major plot point is there up to their arrival in Budapest, which is where the plot of the movie begins to deviate from the book.
Apart from the plot, this is the list of the things they kept:
- Dante's poem "Inferno" Botticelli's painting Map of Hell being the most significant piece of clue (kind of necessary since the movie IS called "Inferno")
- "Cerca Trova", the Faraday Pointer, and Dante's death mask.
- LOCATIONS: The Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Venice, Istanbul, Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern.
- CHARACTERS: Vayentha, Elizabeth Sinskey, The Provost (Consortium's leader, Harry Sims in the movie), Ignazio Busoni, Marta Alvarez.
If you look at it overall, apart from the final act, the movie reasonably adapted the book well: It contained all the major plot points, objects, characters, locations, and it had the overall theme of population control present. That being said, completely changing the final act ruins any meaningful character that Sienna has and it also does change the entire message of the books about the dangers of overpopulation, even though the way Dan Brown presents it is rather questionable.
So in this next section, I will be discussing the entire ending, why I think the book's ending was really questionable and kind of reckless of Brown's part, Sienna's entire missing backstory, and some of the other plot details the movie missed.
The Disloyal Factors
The biggest difference between the book and the movie is the nature of the virus and its ending. In the film, Sienna and a few other Zobrist followers tries to blow up the Basilica Cistern (the location of the virus) and release the virus early. Langdon & Co. arrive on time and after a brief struggle, the bag with the virus (which turns out to be an ACTUAL PLAGUE) is secured by WHO but Sienna dies in the explosion.
In the novel, when Sienna, Langdon, and WHO arrive at the Cistern, it is revealed that the virus had already been released and the date Zobrist wrote was the date that the virus would have infected the world population, not the date of release (which was about a week ago). It turns out that Sienna had also realized the horror at what she had helped create and was trying to stop the release of the virus herself, and didn't trust the WHO because she believed that WHO would sell it to a third party. Sienna does not die and ends up surrendering herself to Langdon because she has lost everything she cares for and feels hopeless because she has nowhere to go. Sienna arranges a deal with WHO where she gets immunity in exchange for helping WHO in identifying the virus and figuring out a solution. It is revealed that the virus is a vector virus meant to cause infertility in certain percentage of the population to help decrease the population "naturally". Langdon and WHO agrees (to my extreme shock) that they shouldn't try to reverse the effects of the virus because ZOBRIST HAD A POINT (Yes, Dan Brown actually suggested that forced sterilization was a good thing. I'm very shocked and HORRIFIED.).
Apart from this, the film removed Sienna's backstory completely. Sienna being a child prodigy is mentioned, but there is a portion of the novel where Langdon learns that a young Sienna had become overwhelmed by all the pressure put on her and ended up diagnosing herself with depression. I was disappointed they left this out (although I understand why) because it made Sienna's eventual surrender more sense; Sienna was thoroughly exhausted by that point and she was overcome with guilt for what she had done. Sienna, like Zobrist, was very much a tragic figure who had found comfort in Zobrist and by the end was just a terrified girl.
The film also (also understandably) left out the fact that Sienna was bald. It turned out that Sienna was sexually assaulted in the Philippines and the resulting stress had made all of her hair fall out, forcing her to wear a wig. Her self-consciousness over her baldness is another reason why she was in love with Zobrist because he genuinely accepted her for who she was and seemed to believe that Sienna was stronger for what she had gone through and that she was a warrior rather than a victim.
The novel was better in this aspect because the film sums up Sienna's motivations to "He's a genius and I love him." But in the novel, it was completely different. Sienna may be the most redeemed, heroic character of the novel; she helped Zobrist create the virus, but she eventually realized how dangerous the virus was and decided to stop it herself, having valid concerns about what would happen if WHO got their hands on it. Even though Sienna betrayed Robert, she did it with good intentions and it makes it so hard to hate such a complex, well-rounded character like Sienna who is very much a redeemed villain.
By cutting out Sienna's backstory, I think they also ruined Zobrist's character quite a bit. Was Betrand Zobrist a bioterrorist? Absolutely. But was he evil? Not exactlu. The book makes it quite clear that not only was Zobrist willing to sacrifice his life for doing what he believed to be saving the world, but through Sienna's character, we see that Zobrist is a good man. Zobrist clearly made Sienna feel safe and loved her for who she was. A big part of Sienna's character is that she was always an outcast due to her intelligence and with Zobrist, she could be herself. I frankly found the novel Zobrist to be a compelling character and a good person who genuinely thought he was trying to help the world.
The film Zobrist on the other hand is just shallow. He shows concern about overpopulation, but we don't see much of the kindness that Sienna experienced, and the fact that he CREATED A LITERAL PLAGUE paints him as an unhinged madman. The novel Zobrist was so much more complex and I think he was really hurt by the removal of Sienna's backstory.
The film also switched out Jonathan Ferris for Christophe Bouchard. In the novel, Ferris was a Consortium agent who had posed as Dr. Marconi earlier and had been sent to keep Langdon and Sienna distracted, posing as a member of WHO, so that WHO could get to them, but is later knocked out by Sienna. Christophe Bouchard was the head agent of the Surveillance and Response Support team of the WHO; he plays a similar role to Ferris, going withe Sienna and Langdon to Venice, but after Sienna betrays Langdon, Bouchard kidnaps Langdon, revealing that he had planned to take the virus for himself and sell it to a third-party, before being killed by the Provost (Harry Sims). I actually liked this change because I liked that they included the idea that there would inevitably someone who would want to take the virus and sell to the highest bidder and I think it was a clever idea to include that aspect.
List of other changes they made:
- In the novel, the Provost and Ferris are arrested for their role in helping Zobrist while in the film, Harry Sims dies heroically helping Langdon.
- Ignazio Busoni dies in the novel while his death is (I don't think) ever mentioned in the film.
- In the film Sinskey and Langdon had a previous relationship but broke up for work-related reasons while their relationship is totally professional in the novel.
- In the novel, while Vayentha's gun held blanks and the Consortium was never trying to kill Langdon, the film's Consortium actually orders a kill order for Langdon (which I guess is why they gave Sims a heroic death to make up for him trying to kill Langdon).
They also made a myriad of smaller changes clearly for time issues that I won't list because they barely affect the plot anyways, but know that a lot of things were changed.
Now I will give my personal thoughts on both the film and the novel in this next section, and give my summative thoughts on Inferno as an adaptation.
Personal Opinions
The Novel:
The novel's a fun thriller. It has all the same pros and cons of a Dan Brown novel. It's a fun thriller and a great page turner and seems to be well-researched, but it suffers from Brown's formulaic plots and a boring hero (Langdon's knowledge is genuinely interesting bur he's too perfect and flawless). Another pro with this novel is that Brown did a great job with Sienna and Zobrist; he wrote them well (his side characters are always written superbly compared to Langdon) and made them into complex characters where Zobrist is a bad guy but he's not a "bad person" and Sienna is so complex and interesting. But my biggest gripe with this novel is that Dan Brown kind of promotes forced sterilization as a method of population control. Like he doesn't straight up support it, but the characters all admit that it's kind of a necessary evil and I can't get over that at all. Surely a better ending would've been WHO to say they were going to at least try to find a solution because forced sterilization of half the world's population is just wrong. I understand that Brown is allowed to have his opinions and he might not actually support forced sterilization, but his CHARACTERS certainly are fine with it, which makes it seem like HE supports it as well. Overall, Inferno was a fine book. I prefer The Da Vinci Code and Digital Fortress much more but Inferno was certainly entertaining to read.
The Film:
The film is actually pretty good on its own; I saw the film first so I can say that it's a well-made thriller. But compared to the book, it's shallow. They painted Sienna and Zobrist as these made terrorists (which they aren't) and took away any real depth to their characters. I also thought it was really dumb that a genius like Zobrist who considers himself to be saving the world couldn't come up with something else other than a bloody plague. That being said, the film's easy to follow, has some very exciting scenes in it, and Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones are pretty great. But if someone were to ask me which Dan Brown film they should watch I would point them to The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons first, because I just think they're better movies (The Da Vinci Code even has Sir Ian McKellen in it). Inferno is a fine movie but it's a poor representation of the books and not the best Dan Brown movie either.Overall Assessment
As an adaptation, Inferno felt very much like Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park (Reviewed Here: https://studiesofflicksnnovels.blogspot.com/2019/04/adaptation-review-michael-crichtons.html). Not in quality (Jurassic Park was MUCH better in every way) but in the actually adapting. Both adaptations took the general premise and plot of the novel and added their own twists on it. I liked this on Jurassic Park because I thought the movie version was better than the book. With Inferno, I can't say I like either better definitively; the novel's interesting enough, but it's not my particular favourite of Dan Brown's works (mainly because Brown seems to advocate for forced sterilization which I don't think is right) and the movie wasn't a drastic improvement compared to the book.
I considered Jurassic Park a successful adaptation because there is a difference between an accurate adaptation and a good adaption, something that I will be incorporating into my future reviews. Jurassic Park is by no means an accurate adaptation; it kept the bare minimum of the plot while take great liberties to the plot and characters. However, Jurassic Park was a good adaptation in my opinion because the movie still kept the book's message of the dangers of unchecked genetic experiments and trying to play God, and the message is never drowned out by the movie; even subsequent Jurassic Park movies and the two Jurassic World movies revolved around the original novel's themes and I think that it does show some respect to the original book, making it a good adaptation.
Inferno is not an accurate adaptation nor is it a good adaptation. The novel actually took some time to address the dangers of overpopulation, and while the movie does address it a bit, it never comes back full circle. The novel includes Bertrand Zobrist and his ideology throughout the story to remind the readers that Zobrist is almost like Thanos in that he sees an existing problem and is trying to solve it in a messed up way, and the overpopulation issue is actually addressed at the end of the novel. The movie on the other hand mentions Zobrist and his population control ideas only two or three times at most as far as I can remember and forgets to do the one thing that the novel ended up doing: Dan Brown made Zobrist somewhat of a tragic figure.
Very much like Thanos, Zobrist saw that overpopulation would be a problem so he dedicated his life to work on what he thought to be a real problem, despite it being very flawed. That's why I personally ended up liking the book; I like tragic villains who are misguided into believing that they're doing genuine good, and the movie messed this up really badly. The movie essentially ignored the whole overpopulation issue and became a (well-acted and at least vaguely entertaining) generic terrorism thriller where Zobrist is painted as some random madman. Zobrist was the villain in the novel; his method of forced sterilization for population control is wrong. However, the novel at least took some time to give Zobrist some traits that portrayed as simply a misguide man; he was still probably a bit crazy, but at least we knew that he was trying to do some good. The film Zobrist does still have that goal of population control for the good, but that aspect of him is ignored so much that he simply comes off as a crazed lunatic; furthermore, his virus was the ACTUAL PLAGUE, which makes it very hard to see him in any positive light (At least the virus that Zobrist had in the novel was more humane and painless compared to the LITERAL PLAGUE).
Inferno could have been a better movie and adaptation had they presented Zobrist like Thanos. His character simply wasn't given enough time and as a result, he (Sienna in the process) is presented as some madman trying to kill half the world with a plague. The novel Zobrist was a better antagonist for the same reason Thanos was; they both had good intentions with a poor execution of their plans. While the film did get the plot right, Inferno as an adaptation left me feeling empty because it just felt so shallow to me compared to the novel. If you want to be exposed to Inferno in one way or another, I'd suggest you to just read the book and skip the movie; you won't miss anything apart from Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones being great, but if you want to really watch a good Dan Brown movie, just watch The Da Vinci Code.
As seeing as we are in a state of quarantine that seems never ending, my next review will be reviewing one of Stephen King's masterpieces that seems to be almost prophetic in nature, revolving around a disastrous pandemic caused by the deadly "Superflu" (Laws Yes!) . This book was the centre of attention at the beginning of the pandemic because people were getting paranoid that Stephen King's The Stand was actually happening in real life, when the Superflu of the novel was much more serious. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!
