I’m not the biggest fan of The Divine Comedy, the poem Dante’s Inferno is based off of. The idea is pretty cool; an epic poem with Lucifer as the “protagonist,” but the prose is just too purple for me. So I was interested in this game and anime when I heard about them.

Let’s get the very little positive out of the way so I can concentrate all that’s wrong with it; the animation is a feast to look at. The movie is split into 6 parts each with a different style of animation so it’s a little jarring, but still very nice to look at. Dante kicks ass, the monsters and demons are creepy as all get out, and hell looks very hellish.

I can’t be anywhere near as positive for the story though. There are so many jumps of logic, plot holes, and pseudo-philosophizing that even the greatest animation can’t redeem the film. It starts off with Dante’s girlfriend Beatrice being murdered and her pure soul being pulled into hell and Dante swearing to get her back and brings along her favorite cross. On the way he meets the Roman poet, Virgil, a guide for his trek through hell, though he really doesn’t do much except serve as a convenient plot device, and I suspect he’s supposed to be for tutorial help for the game.

We soon find out that Lucifer wants Beatrice’s pure soul and is going to marry her. “Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, etc etc” weren’t good enough for him because their souls were tainted. My problem with this is when Beatrice accepts Lucifer her soul will become tainted. How could marrying the embodiment of evil NOT taint the soul? So how would that make her any better? Doesn’t make any sense.

And Dante himself is pretty generic. He grunts and growls and screams as he swings his scythe around making grand remarks about slicing demons in half and saving Beatrice. He has flashbacks to times when he sinned (while in the corresponding circle of hell) and feels bad for them. During one of these moments he says a priest absolved him of all his sins, but is told that no man can absolve sins and save another from hell. That’s fine and I’d accept that, except he uses his girlfriend’s cross to SAVE PEOPLE FROM HELL. At one point a phantom of Lucifer appears angry that Dante saved someone from hell and at another point laughs at Dante for failing when Dante tried praying to God to save some other souls from hell (instead of using the soul freeing cross he has and has used before). Internally consistent, this story is not.

So Beatrice finally DOES marry Lucifer, since Dante had actually killed a lot of innocent people during the Crusade and was unintentionally responsible for her death (don’t ask, it involves a lot of convenient plot points). She turns into a demon and attacks Dante. Dante shows her her cross and she turns mortal again and angels come and take her to heaven. An angel appeared in the 8th circle of hell just to pick up some chick that accepted God. Why not pick her up when she was still pure to begin with? Why wait until she renews her faith in God AFTER becoming the Queen of Hell? Because then we have no story.

The last problem is when Dante is fighting Lucifer, Lucifer is about to escape hell and arrive at purgatory after being released into his true form by Dante (involving a whole mess of “ha ha this was my intention all along” cliched drivel). As he’s about to escape, Dante prays asking for forgiveness and that he’s willing to sacrifice his freedom to trap Lucifer and himself in hell. So, Lucifer freezes solid and Dante proceeds to jump through the portal to purgatory and arrives at purgatory… what was that about sacrificing himself? “Psych! Ha ha I’m not really willing to sacrifice my happiness to keep Lucifer trapped in hell, God!” Really, there’s no other explanation to his unceremonious escape from hell after making that sacrifice.

This story reminds me of a bad 90s comic that uses cheap Biblical references to seem edgey when really it’s shallow and stupid. It’s completely style over substance in the worst way possible.

Viewed as a distinct entity from Dante’s Divine Comedy (the greatness of which cannot ever be duplicated, frankly), this animated film isn’t terrible. It’s certainly better than I expected. As one would anticipate, the storyline follows the now-infamous venture of Dante, guided by Virgil, through the deepest circles of hell in his pursuit of his love, Beatrice. All of the usual cast of characters are there: the river Styx, Charon, the Elysian fields, etc.

The animation style is visually engaging and interesting, though the film itself strips any potential intellectual recourse from the storyline. Rather than embodying the poetry of the original text, the out-and-out gorefest and visceral aspects are used to tell the story in this film. I can’t exactly say I’m surprised.

Went into this film with very low expectations, as I’m an ardent lover of the original Dante (and much prefer textual to film rendering of most everything). However, it was less disappointing than I thought. Might be useful either for someone totally disinterested in reading the Inferno (thus, just satisfying a need for violence and some modicum of plot), or as a curiosity for a true Dante aficionado.

This is the worst adaptation possible of Dante’s Inferno. Dante was NOT a warrior in the story, but a simple witness on a mission from God. Beatrice was NOT sequestered by Lucifer at all, she only went down to Limbo to request Virgil to protect and guide Dante through Hell and Purgatorio, then she went back to Heaven. Lucifer in the poem was completely passive and didn’t give Dante any problems whatsoever.

So, making Dante a warrior killing dead people just does not make any sense in any reasonable healthy mind. Finding Beatrice murdered is really bad taste and lack of imagination to make Dante go after her in Hell.

There are many ways to adapt movies from books, but this one is the worst adaptation anyone could imagine.

To make things worst, the quality of this animation is so flat that reminds me of Disney’s 60′s animations. I guess they forgot we have gone a long way in animation technology and audience expectations 50 years later.

I wonder why I’m forced to give a 1 star, because this movie does NOT deserve even that. ZERO star is what they got from me.

If you are interested in a real epic animation, which even has a similar title try this (…)

Dante’s Inferno Animated (L’Inferno di Dante Animato)