Inferno
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: October 28, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
42
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 47 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
27
Negative:
11
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 27, 2016
It is a satisfying but thoroughly idiotic film, in which relationships make no sense, character motivations change on a dime, and Tom Hanks has weird hair. But brainless as it is, it’s artful. It is a well-made bit of silliness, a piece of construction optimally designed to maintain audience interest while garnering absolutely no one’s respect. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesBill ZweckerOct 27, 2016
Inferno delivers as an engaging thriller that I frankly enjoyed far more than Howard’s last Brown outing. Read full review
75
Entertainment Weekly Simon PerryOct 24, 2016
Bourne it is not, but the twists come with enough regularity to keep the squishier parts of the plot from mucking up the works. Read full review
70
New York Daily NewsEdward DouglasOct 26, 2016
It's fair to say that Inferno won't be for everyone, but those who have stuck through Howard and Hanks' previous Dan Brown adaptations should find enough thrills to keep them interested in solving the mystery. Read full review
70
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganOct 8, 2016
Koepp has managed a brisk adaptation, although some of the dialogue can feel very forced, particularly when it comes to the clue-solving set-ups. Still, Howard keeps the viewer constantly occupied, Felicity Jones is an engaging sidekick, and there’s clearly a lot more mileage left for Tom Hanks in this franchise’s tank. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinOct 8, 2016
Although some of the film’s many twists are not that surprising, they’re satisfyingly delivered, and with a strong supporting cast ...plus striking dream imagery, this adds up to arguably the best in the franchise so far. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesOct 26, 2016
Returning director Ron Howard somewhat belabors the Botticelli-inspired hallucinations Langdon suffers from following a konk on the head – though you really can’t oversell the creepiness of a beaky plague mask – but he continues to have an inspired hand in casting his supporting players. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerOct 27, 2016
Perhaps Howard’s dutiful obligation to Brown’s treasure-hunt oeuvre will end here, with the temperate Inferno sparking a resurgence to follow. Dante wrote that “The poets leave hell and again behold the stars.” Here’s hoping that Howard has some shine left in him. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 27, 2016
Inferno is the exact cinematic equivalent of an airport paperback, which is what’s fine and forgettable about it. Read full review
60
Total FilmNeil SmithOct 10, 2016
Early promise proves misleading in a sequel that should be far better than The Da Vinci Code than it actually is. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyOct 26, 2016
This latest film, which was made on about half the budget of either of its predecessors, is as close as the Langdon-Howard cycle has gotten to actually being fun. Read full review
58
The Film StageDan MeccaOct 26, 2016
The first two — The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons — left much to be desired. This one emerges as a marked improvement, though that’s not saying a whole lot. Read full review
50
The PlaylistWill AshtonNov 2, 2016
Whatever inspired the compulsively addictive (I assume) fast-selling book series isn’t found in yet another dull, tiresome race-against-the-clock European mystery thriller with a historical twist. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 1, 2016
The most interesting character and performance come from the great Indian actor Iffran Khan (“Life of Pi,” “Jurassic World,” “The Lunchbox”). He brings a wonderful world weariness to this “dark money” criminal mastermind. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 28, 2016
Unless you are a Dante scholar, and perhaps not even then, following Inferno is a wild goose chase – without the goose. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisOct 27, 2016
Part of the draw of these movies is that they don’t create beauty, but instead borrow the emotions of the beauty they depict. (This, more or less, is one definition of kitsch, courtesy of the philosopher Tomas Kulka.) That makes the movies easy to watch and easy to forget. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle SmithOct 27, 2016
The film is never gripping, but at least it moves. Director Ron Howard does his best to spark excitement with cheesy horror-movie editing — brief shots of the damnation in store if the virus is unleashed — and there are a couple of twists to keep things lively. Nothing is what it seems, unless it seems ridiculous, in which case it’s exactly what it seems. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 27, 2016
The "Da Vinci Code" was adequate but forgettable. "Angels & Demons" was godawful. Inferno is somewhere in between - watchable but by no means worth the money and effort necessary to see it theatrically. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonOct 27, 2016
Don’t get burned by Inferno. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranOct 27, 2016
It's not that "Inferno" as it stands doesn't provide hints of better things. The plot has its share of unexpected twists, peripheral characters hold our attention, wide-screen vistas of tourist destinations Florence, Venice and Istanbul are easy to take, and stories involving the end of the world have a certain built-in interest. But as presented on screen, none of this gels as it should. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallOct 27, 2016
Inferno is another docent tour dressed as an action movie, a baby boomer's fantasy of travel and intrigue. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireOct 27, 2016
The multiple twists, double-crosses and leaps in logic are more likely to prompt giggles than gasps, despite the impressive production values and the earnest efforts of an A-list cast. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanOct 27, 2016
Ron Howard, who’s tied to this franchise like a man trapped in a decaying house by a huge mortgage, tries without success to blow life into David Koepp’s script. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenOct 26, 2016
The chase, chase, chase pace is tiring, not least because it’s not clear who many of these people are and what agendas they’re following. Mixed-up confusion is the result. Read full review
50
USA TodayBrian TruittOct 26, 2016
Even with a wealth of talent involved, Inferno is missing some serious heat. Read full review
42
MTV NewsAmy NicholsonOct 27, 2016
When it was all over, I found myself googling Dante for my own clue as to what I’d just suffered: “He who knows most grieves most for wasted time.” Read full review
42
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonOct 26, 2016
Inferno, much like its predecessors, simply can’t work its way out of the disappointing middle ground between a slick, technically competent thriller and tongue-in-cheek absurdity. Read full review
42
IndieWireDemetrios MatheouOct 11, 2016
If the first film was ploddingly, airlessly faithful to its source, this follows the second in being frantically paced, chaotic and increasingly exasperating. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinOct 28, 2016
Tom Hanks takes his art down a peg with another paycheck performance as the dramatic cipher Robert Langdon in Inferno, Ron Howard’s mostly lame adaptation of Dan Brown’s wholly lame novel. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternOct 27, 2016
This gets to be exhausting, since there’s hardly a scene that isn’t manipulative or assaultive. Read full review
40
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoOct 27, 2016
Inferno feels every bit like the second sequel in an exhausted franchise, stunted by unfocused storytelling and a blandness that's almost sleep-inducing. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 27, 2016
Inferno...is the kind of movie that stops — and stoops — to explain, early and often. Not that the explanations amount to much; the movie makes almost no sense. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottOct 26, 2016
Howard's film, particularly early on, ends up being too fast, too dense and too smart for its own good. Keeping moviegoers guessing is one thing. Keeping them confused is quite another. Read full review
40
EmpireHelen O'HaraOct 10, 2016
It’s not the worst of the trilogy, but this is less for fans of thrillers and more for people who are pining after last year’s holiday to Florence. Read full review
40
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonOct 10, 2016
By the end, even Hanks looks a bit bored. Read full review
40
VarietyGuy LodgeOct 8, 2016
There’s a stern, let’s-get-to-work air to the film’s craft and conception that hampers whatever thrill of the chase “Inferno” has to offer. Fundamentally silly the film may be, but it never graduates to spryness. Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 27, 2016
Hanks is one of the most likable actors on the planet. But Inferno just lays there onscreen, pancake-flat and with no animating spark to make us give a damn. Read full review
38
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniOct 27, 2016
The more movie magic Howard piles on, the less we care. And, boy, does he pull out all the stops, stocking the pic with a tub of red herrings, half a dozen plot twists, and more complex set pieces than a comic-book flick. I felt relieved when it was finally over. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 27, 2016
This is a franchise with lead weights tied around its ankles. Read full review
37
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanOct 27, 2016
Say what you will about Dan Brown’s books. They may be, as some have noted, poorly written, formulaic and pretentious. But at least they hold a reader’s attention, in ways that this excursion — as sleep-inducing and rigidly predictable as a train ride — does not. Read full review
30
ScreenCrushMatt SingerNov 2, 2016
The Da Vinci Code wasn’t Da Vinci, but it was an actual movie with texture and characters. Inferno is dumbed down to a shocking degree. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineJake ColeOct 26, 2016
It's impossible to even laugh at Inferno given how Ron Howard reduces the material to a dull spectacle of earnest puzzle-solving. Read full review
20
CineVueJoe WalshOct 12, 2016
Like The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons before it, Inferno stumbles into the same pitfalls of convoluted plotting, kindergarten art history and conspiracy theories of the daytime-slot-on-the-Discovery-Channel sort. Read full review
20
The TelegraphRobbie CollinOct 10, 2016
While the plot’s endless lurches and jinks are designed to hold you in a constant state of pleasurable bafflement, the cumulative effect is desensitisation: no single thread holds long enough to give you anything to cheer for or believe in. Read full review
20
TheWrapJason SolomonsOct 10, 2016
Ron Howard allows all manner of contrivances to pile up in David Koepp‘s screenplay, as if relying on constant reference to Dante’s Divine Comedy would make people think, “Ooh, this is clever stuff.” Read full review
20
The GuardianPeter BradshawOct 10, 2016
Once upon a time, this wackiness had some novelty value. Now it’s tedious. Read full review
10
Village VoiceBilge EbiriNov 2, 2016
Take the Dan Brown out of a Dan Brown movie and all you’re left with is Tom Hanks jogging in mild irritation. Read full review
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