FILM REVIEW: 'DANTE'S INFERNO' BLU-RAY

Drop Your Idea of Watching a Classic, & Marvel at the Anime

Ah, where to begin? I should at least warn you that this animated adaptation of Dante’s Inferno has almost nothing to do with the epic poem — nothing whatsoever. It is, in fact, a spin-off of a video game that itself was inspired by Dante Alighieri’s work, and if you want to get the most out of this little anime adventure, I suggest blocking that factoid out of your mind and attempting to simply go with the flow.

The original story is reworked here to chronicle Dante’s quest to save his girlfriend Beatrice (who plays his guide into Paradise in the poem) from Lucifer, who has claimed her soul postmortem. To do this, he, of course, has to traverse the nine layers of hell, which he does with the help of the spirit of the poet Virgil. When I explained this to a friend who had read the poem, he freaked out a little bit, so clearly this is not what happens in the source material, but for those of us who are ignorant enough to not have read it before, you should be a-okay.

Dialogue is equally clunky and unnecessary. Whoever wrote this should take note of the fact that just because dialogue sounds “epic” doesn’t mean it’s “good” dialogue. A large amount of what comes out of characters’ mouths throughout Dante’s Inferno is plodding and unnecessarily drawn out, embodying a pointless faux-Shakespearean quality. Frequently, I simply felt like screaming “get on with it already!” to no avail.

Story adaptation and dialogue issues aside, the animation here is breathtaking. Several animation studios, including some that are well-known in the Japanese anime community, collaborated on this effort, and it really shines through, almost making up for the questionable story. This definitely is not Pixar quality, to be sure, but the fluidity of the fight scenes is very satisfying. There’s nothing worse than a poorly animated film, and at least Dante’s Inferno has that going for it.

The entire affair wraps up on a somewhat sudden and anticlimactic note, a genuine face-to-palm moment. That’s not to say it doesn’t work — it certainly does, but the ending does feel rushed, as if the animators or the writer simply ran out of time or couldn’t think of anything better. It’s not the best way to end this already faltering feature-length film and doesn’t bode well for its reception. Ah well, at least the Blu-ray looks nice…