Felicity Jones Teams up With Tom Hanks for Third Dan Brown Thriller, ‘Inferno’

Amanda Nolan

Tom Hanks is back again as Robert Langdon, historian and symbologist extraordinaire. As audiences know from the first two Dan Brown adaptations, “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels & Demons,” Langdon’s expert knowledge comes in handy for solving cryptic crimes.

In the latest installment, “Inferno,” Langdon finds himself with a case of amnesia. Waking up in an Italian hospital, the professor has no idea what happened to him or how he got there. He is under the care of physician Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), who barely has a chance to inform him of what’s happening when an assassin drops in, with Langdon as the target. The two escape and find themselves caught up in a dangerous hunt to find the truth, where Dante’s “Inferno” (the section of the “Divine Comedy,” describing a descent into hell) becomes the key subject of a nefarious plot.

Creating problems is billionaire Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), a biologist who feels overpopulation is destroying the earth. His solution: death by global virus. “Humanity is the disease, and Inferno is the cure,” Zobrist states to start of the film. He has designed a way to release the virus and has hidden the mechanism. Fortunately for the world, the Dante-obsessed Zobrist left behind a series of clues before jumping off a bell tower.

Langdon is just the man to decipher them. With cars, trains and bikes, he and Brooks travel all over Europe in a race against time. They come across drones and henchmen, but the vulnerable Langdon doesn’t know whom to trust. In the middle of all the action, he is also trying to recover his memory and experiencing horrifying visions of doom.

Ron Howard talks about his third time directing the franchise: “The fact that the historical component that Dan Brown chose is Dante in hell gives me, as a director, all kinds of vivid cool moments, images, sounds and cutting styles to deal with,” Howard tells Entertainment Weekly. “So it was a really fun creative departure and undertaking for me.” The movie also stars Sidse Babett Knudsen, Omar Sy and Irrfan Khan.

“Inferno” hits theaters nationwide Oct. 28.