So convoluted I lost count of the shortcuts, Inferno makes a bigger blunder: zero excitement. In the beginning of this Dan Brown adaptation, it feels like horror could be on the cards. Yet director Ron Howard quickly bypasses the apocalyptic imagery in favour of a straight chaser. This could work yet it doesn’t because the characters come across as arrogant and overly informed. Also, David Koepp’s script signposts clues too early, putting a stopper in the suspense.

From a nightmarish reverie, Professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) awakens in a hospital bed, and he has no memory what happened before. That cliché must be well past the use by date, surely? By the time he puts it all together with the assistance of Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), it’s clear that Koepp’s over-caffeinated plot shows signs of jumpiness.

For the record, I wasn’t enamoured by The Da Vinci Code. Like Inferno, there were symbols that felt random and meaningless. It seemed too neat, fabricated to a fault. Sometimes, the messier a mystery the deeper our fascination grows.

On the whole, Inferno covets a smorgasbord of scholarly artefacts relating to Dante. Meanwhile, the characters seem conveniently placed to solve them. Somehow, it takes the guessing out of the game.

Talking performances, the lack of breathing room for Hanks prevents him from sharing emotions. He’s stifled by having to explain so much. Because he’s running or hiding, that’s hardly enough to transform Inferno into something poignant, intelligent or a work of art.

(Released by Columbia Pictures and rated "PG-13" for sequences of action and violence, disturbing images, some language, thematic elements and brief sexuality.)