Religious Symbolism Is All You Get This Weekend and You'll Like It: October 28's New Movie

It's Halloween and the two most “cursed” (curses don't exist, but a century of lazy greed sure does!) teams in Major League Baseball history, the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians, are playing each other in the World Series. It is not prime moviegoing time, so kudos to Hollywood for only unleashing one new wide release on the world this weekend. It stinks that if you're not into quasi-religious conspiracy stories, dressing up, or baseball history, that's all you're gonna get, but you'll get through it. I believe in you.

Photo credit: The Robert Langdon Series (Inferno, Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons)/Facebook

Inferno

Director: Ron Howard

Writer: David Koepp

Starring: Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Irrfan Khan, Ben Foster, Omar Sy, Sidse Babett Knudsen

In this third installment of Ron Howard’s (In the Heart of the Sea, Apollo 13) series of “Tom Hanks solves historical and religious mysteries” adaptations of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code books, Hanks returns as Robert Langdon. This time he is accompanied by his student, played by Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything and the upcoming Star Wars: Rogue One) to stop a worldwide infection being released by a Dante-loving villain (Hell or High Water’s Ben Foster), who looks from the trailer like he doesn't last too long in the movie.

I was in high school the last time I saw one of these movies (2006’s Da Vinci Code) and I can report that it is forgettable. I remember there being a lot of blue-tinted lights and a house that was maybe owned by Jesus or something? That's it.  Ron Howard’s filmmaking is the epitome of “workmanlike” in that nothing specific in his movies stays with you even if the overall effect is positive. Maybe there's something new here, but color me skeptical. It'll probably be a solid thriller starring one of the final universally beloved leading men. That's worth a lot.

And one final thing: Go Cubs. Make my dreams come true. My mom and I will be on a rooftop across from Wrigley Field for Game 3, my reporting of such may very well replace a review this week if I can't fit in a screening of Inferno.