Dante's Inferno Animated

First off, Dante's Inferno Animated is not an animated version of Dante's The Inferno. Rather, it is based on a video game called Dante's Inferno, which is based very, VERY, loosely on the actual work. It's not usual for video games to get this treatment so I figured it was worth a look. I don't own the game but I know enough about it.

Look at that. It says it's an animated epic. Whatever. The main character is Dante who is apparently a crusader out to take the holy land. Right of the bat, Dante's horse FLIPS through the air. Again, whatever. Dante rushes home to his wife Beatrice, who he believes is in great danger. Thankfully, she's not in danger but is simply dead. Her soul is taken by Lucifer to hell as payment for a "bargain" of some sort to be explained later. Dante decides that the rational thing to do is to jump into hell to save her and so begins the story and the hack n' slash killfest hour.

The story is incredibly fast with Dante cruising at the speed of one circle of hell per ten minutes. As he fights on, his past is shown to us via flashbacks. When we're not watching a flashback of Dante, we're watching him hack demons over and over and over again. That's pretty much it basically. The show is nothing but Dante whining about how hellish hell is as he carves an incredibly bloody path through the underworld. He is accompanied by Virgil who does all the exposition since Dante can only growl "Beatrice!" as the ghost of his very naked wife floats away. That's it. What do you expect being based on a video game of the novel?

By the way, the trailer is wrong. It's based on the game of the original material. ON THE GAME. I can't stress that enough so all you literary assholes out there looking for an adaptation of the real work won't get dissapointed. Dante never killed no demons. In fairness, the way it shows the circles of hell is pretty creative. The trailer mentions animated studios.

There were five studios involved giving us five distinct styles. The first is more western in appearance. It reminded me of Spawn though not as good and probably not the same studio I think. The animation seemed sped up and weird in some areas. The second is a lot better. It's more anime-like but tons more awesome. The third is where Dante gets anorexic with long angsty hair. In the fourth he gains 300 pounds of muscle mass and looks more like some kind of shonen crap. In the finale, he looks boring but the fight scenes are pulled of technically well. If it weren't for the varying styles, this epic would have been epically boring. It helps keep some variety. All versions are very violent with blood and guts and even more blood, tits, gore, blood. It's very bloody. Blood.

All in all, it's pointless, mindless action but it's fun. I never expected anything more than that. The visuals keep it interesting enough to hold my attention otherwise it gets repetitive. Don't expect anything deep in this movie. Throw away the, ugh, "book" you pussy and watch some violence.