Howard tends to be a lead foot, either because he likes it like that (as in his racing movie “Rush”) or knows that one of the smarter ways to handle certain material is to sprint through its twists. So when Langdon first appears in a hospital bed in “Inferno,” groaning in pain amid the woozy camerawork, you’re ready to put a cold compress on his (or, really, Mr. One of the obvious draws of civilian champions, those latter-day Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys, is that they’re inordinately, at times vulnerably, ordinary until they start doing their special thing. That’s especially crucial with a civilian superhero like Langdon, one of those preposterously capable types who wears professorial threads instead of a cape and excels at cracking gnarly codes rather than bad-guy heads. Hanks’s case, this legerdemain depends on his natural appeal, which has deepened as he’s settled into stardom, as well as his ability to bring remarkable characters down to earth.

Hanks, slipping back into the role of the so-called symbologist Robert Langdon for a third time, is a master of that great Hollywood sleight of hand in which a big star beguiles you so artfully that you don’t see (or simply ignore) the deception. In this case, the story may not make any sense, but they’re going to throw so much at you - so many jumpy moves, so many tangled threads - that you might not notice (or care).Ĭertainly Mr. Once again, this one comes to you from the director Ron Howard and his producing partner, Brian Grazer, who bring clenched-jaw commitment and a whole mess of filmmaking to every project, even the most disposable. Hanks is running (and running) through another muddled Dan Brown maze. Late in “Inferno,” Tom Hanks blurts out, “My God, this is a labyrinth.” Well, of course it is, because Mr.

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