I still remember the hoo-ha surrounding the video game Dante's Inferno upon its release in 2010. This was a God of War style ultra violent action adventure game that was based upon Dante Alighieri's famous series of poems from the 1300's, specifically The Divine Comedy 1: Inferno. Being the early 2000's still, this was a time of edge, and so what better way than to have a ridiculous over the top violent game starring a rage afflicted protagonist. It was while doing admin on my index that I finally got to 'D' and so editing my review of the game I was reminded that there had been an animated film, Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic released at the same time. I had always assumed it was a prequel to the game itself and so had little interest in seeing it, but with Apple Airplay not working today, I decided to check out this film on Amazon Prime Video.
Rather than a prequel, this in fact tells the far more interesting story of Dante's journey into the depths of Hell, so the story mirrors the events of the game. Returning home from the Crusades, Dante (Graham McTavish - The Hobbit trilogy, Castlevania TV series) is shocked to discover the love of his life, Beatrice (Vanessa Branch - Pirates of the Caribbean film series) dying, having been attacked by a stranger. Her soul being pure is destined to go to Heaven, however, it is then Lucifer (Steve Blum - The Mandalorian TV series) appears and states that as Dante broke his pact to be faithful to Beatrice while away fighting, her soul is his to take. Dante, convinced he didn't break that promise is enraged, and after Lucifer takes his love away to Hell, Dante pursues, determined to fight all the demons of Hell in order to rescue her. Along the way, Dante is reminded of just how sinful a person he really was.
I already felt the video game was a speed-run through the nine circles of Hell, so a ninety minute film was going to be even more so. This is almost a step-by step recreation of the game with some story elements changed. Just from what I noticed, in the game it was the Grim Reaper's scythe that Dante was armed with, here it is just a nameless demon whose weapon he takes. There was also more of a motivation for Lucifer here, with it all being a plan designed to get himself freed. From what I recall of the game that wasn't actually the case. Each circle of Hell is preceded by a title card, and it is a swift downward path.
The film is very action heavy, almost to ludicrous lengths, Dante is an extremely angry person, an absolute edgelord whose natural response to any sort of barrier is violence. There seemed at least a few times when he might have been able to progress in his quest by the use of dialogue, yet amusingly pretty much every time he leaps roaring through the air with his scythe ready to strike whoever stands in his way. This inherent rage is backed up with a series of flashbacks to earlier in his life to show just what a bad person he is. Dante really is a scumbag, I found it funny how he starts the movie proclaiming to be a good person when it is revealed he isn't remotely. This anti-hero however becomes someone I really didn't want to see succeed. The morale of the movie seems to be that no matter what evil you have commited, if you are angry and violent enough you can still fight past any barriers with zero repercussions.
It seemed different artists were animating each different circle as the design of Dante and his guide Virgil (Peter Jessop - Resident Evil video game) drastically changes (turns out there were actually six different directors and animators over the course of the movie). Sometimes Dante has long flowing hair, other times he is super hench, looking like a brick wall made up of giant muscles. I didn't mind all these changes, it was always obvious who the characters were even if their design was changing. There is lots of action here, and some of these parts were actually entertaining. An early chase sequence involving babies with blades for hands was fun, and there was a very brief fight sequence in 'Lust' that had some great and grotesque monster design. Elsewhere, the majority of the boss characters from the game are easily dispatched, typically Dante will just launch himself through the air and embed his scythe in his foe's head, killing them instantly.
I think if I hadn't played the game then I might have enjoyed Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic more. As it was, I just kept getting reminded of how more in depth all these moments were in the game. This is a film of its time, the raging anti-hero is someone who you don't see as much in anything nowadays, probably a good thing. While I found this to be just about entertaining enough, I was growing increasingly bored as this played out, and it didn't even cure me of my itch to go revisit the game.
SCORE:
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