Dan Brown's novels are articulate, entertaining, and downright brilliant. The film adaptations, however, are usually horrendous. Angels and Demons was a bore, The Da Vinci Code was a flop, and now, Inferno, the fiery third addition with director Ron Howard at the helm, fizzled out. Going into the theater, I had low expectations, but somehow the film seemed to not even meet those. Which surprised me, because with Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones at the top of the bill, I couldn't imagine how a film like this could suffer so greatly.

The premise of the film, for starters, is an unrealistic, depressing, somewhat macabre one. But not really bad. Robert Langdon, world renowned historian and symbologist gets embroiled in a plot of a madman billionaire to wipe out half the Earth's human population (in a response to overpopulation) in a matter of days. Desperate to stop the mass murder, Langdon (who can't remember anything due to head trauma) enlists the help of an ER doctor portrayed by Felicity Jones. Together they go on a romp around Europe to find and stop the biological weapon called, Inferno, from being unleashed by following a set of clues left by the madman, all of which are somehow related to the poet Dante, (Dante famously defined our modern conception of hell 700 years ago in his poem epic, Inferno. Dante's Inferno, the iconic painting depicts different rings and levels of hell). Following the clues, Langdon and his new partner must stop the virus and at the same time grapple with their own humanity, memory, and yes, love. The climax and twists in the film were actually quite heart-wrenching.

The acting in the movie wasn't bad at all. In fact, I've never seen Tom Hanks act badly in any film. Felicity Jones, surprisingly gave a strong performance (which kind of excites me for Rogue One, the upcoming Star Wars film she'll be leading in). But the technical effects of the film and the execution of it make the movie tank so low. For starters, it's unrealistic. It's literally impossible to make a virus so potent it could wipe out half of humanity in 7 days. And you'd have to unleash the pathogen somewhere way more crowded than Istanbul. Even the Black Plague couldn't do this. Next, someone would notice beforehand if you were creating a biological weapon of this magnitude. Seriously. And why create a huge complicated prophecy and clue finding trail? Why wouldn't you just unleash the virus yourself, that day?

The technicals of this film were terrible. I literally got a headache from the noise, and the flashing random lights. The volume was ridiculously over-done and I swear, I could hear dogs barking when the cars screeched to a halt. The cinematography was a joke, because there's a scene with a drone, and at that point, walk out. Just walk the f*ck out of that theater. Take your popcorn, walk out and come back in when the film simmers down. That scene was ridiculously horrible. The only good visual that made me almost have a heart attack is when the veiled woman stood in front of a building of glass and blood just shattered the windows and came out in a fury. I was like, whoah, dude that's pretty awesome.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Even the superb acting of Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones can't lift this unrealistic, unexciting, movie out of the trash heap that is, the Robert Langdon film series. SCORE: 23%

SCORING CRITERIA BREAKDOWN

25% ACTING: Inferno scored 20% (Felicity Jones and Tom Hanks actually make the movie a little more digestible)

25% TECHNICAL: Inferno scored 1% (Headache inducing visuals and cutaways that make you feel like you are drunk. Or hung over)

25% DIRECTION: Inferno scored 0% (The direction was Ron Howard's worst film I can think of)

25% EXECUTION: Inferno scored 3% (The execution of the movie does the book no justice)