▪	RELEASED BY:		ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT / STARZ MEDIA
		▪	ASPECT RATIO:		1.78:1 ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN
		▪	AUDIO:		ENGLISH DD 5.1
		▪	RUNNING TIME:		88 MIN
		▪	RATING:		NR
		▪	RELEASE DATE:		02/09/2010
		▪	REVIEW DATE:		02/05/2010
		▪	REVIEWED BY:		HOLLY ELLINGWOOD

The animated movie is an adaptation of the game that is loosely based on the first part of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, known as Inferno. Dante must travel through the nine Circles of Hell in order to save his beloved Beatrice.  His guide through the nine circles of Hell is the spirit Virgil, the poet who created The Iliad and the Odyssey. He can only guide Dante as Dante braves terrors that are more horrifying with each level he descends. However first he must defeat the fearful demon that guards the gates to Hell to begin his horrific journey. At the same time that Dante fights to save Beatrice, she must battle the increased attempts of seduction by the devil and he has no qualms about turning to torture in order to break her to his will.

Dante determinedly travels through Limbo first, and then battles the Judge of the Damned in the House of Pain where souls are sent to their final fate of eternal torment. During each of his battles, flashbacks are shown to Dante’s past which highlights his own sins during the Crusades. When he combats evil in the Circle of Lust, he must confront his own sins that are shown to Beatrice. At each level, memories of his own misdeeds haunt him. It is perhaps not only her soul that he is there to save.

In Gluttony he faces Cerberus for a gruesome battle. Each level offers different horrors for the audience to view and for Dante to experience.  By the time he reaches Greed, he must do battle with his own father. In the next circle he must not only contend with Anger, but his own inner fury. However he must hurry. Lucifer baits Dante at every turn and lures him to the Circle of Heresy with promises of making Beatrice Queen of Hell and his bride! At the Circle of Violence, Dante makes short work of the Minotaur, yet Beatrice is about to be used for a sinister plan by the Devil. At the Circle of Violence, where countless Greek heroes suffer bloody torment for their own bloodlust, brave Dante crosses over. At the Circle of Fraud, Dante is shocked to find another dear family member. It could well break his spirit before he enters the final circle – Treachery. Dante must look into his deepest sin to redeem himself and save Beatrice.  He must combat his own inner demons if he hopes to save her and then defeat Lucifer if he is ever to escape this nightmare he finds himself in.

The film is an impressive undertaking. It coincides not only with the release of the video game it is based on, but also DC Comics’ Wildstorm comic book adaptation. The comic book miniseries is written by Christos Gage (The Authority, Union Jack, Legends of the Dark Knight) and illustrated by Diego Latorre.  The Visceral Game’s story that the movie and game are based on was created by Jonathan Knight. The animated project has attracted some of the best of the best in animation, including anime studios such as Production I.G. (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, Kill Bill animated sequences), Korean animation company Dong Woo (Batman: Gotham Knight), JM Animation (Avatar: The Last Airbender), Manglobe (Ergo Proxy, Samurai Champloo), and more. Six directors, including Shuko Murase (Ergo Proxy) and Yasoumi Umetsu (Kite: Liberator) give their own interpretations of Dante’s Inferno and the different circles of Hell giving six different styles to be amazed by and immersed in.

The styles differ at times drastically. It opens on rather standard animation, but as soon as the story gets to the Gates of Hell, the animation gears up and the content ramps up in bloody action and suspense as well as a house of horrors.  Much of the content is graphic, very graphic in nature including anabaptized babies’ souls in Limbo, demons being impaled grotesquely in Lust, and souls suffering diverse manners of torments throughout the film. Due to it being based on the EA video game, it contains a fair amount of CG animation adding to the battle scenes and detailed and intense diverse Circles of Hell and the torments and horrors found within each of them. I particularly liked Dante’s weapon and movement at the Gates of Hell and at the very end in Treachery.  The character designs do differ from director to director and animation studio to animation studio. They are always recognizable and never differ so greatly as to be off putting. Instead it offers visually stimulating changes at each level to the look of the characters and their trials.

The look is dark, intense, violent, horrific and Gothic. The score by Christopher Tin is no less intense and well suited to the dialogue and atmosphere it amplifies with its at times eerie sounds. A nice touch is music additions by Visceral Games from which Dante’s Inferno the animated epic is based on game-wise. The dialogue is a cavalcade of fine acting talent including prized voice talent and actor Mark Hamill as Alghiero (Star Wars, unforgettable as the Joker in Batman the Animated Series), Peter Jessop (The Batman, Halo Wars, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen VG) as the voice of Virgil the Guide, Steve Blum (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen VG, Batman Arkham Asylum VG) offers a chilling performance as Lucifer, Vanessa Branch (Pirates of the Caribbean, She Spies, Star Trek Voyager) as the pure Beatrice, and last but certainly not least, the greatly talented Scottish born actor Graham McTavish (Lost, Jekyll, Rambo 4, Pushing Daisies, Middle Men) as the hero Dante.

The movie is a mesmerizing journey. Its greater depth visually and in the story may be due to the great and classic epic poem it is originally based on. The various directors that help breathe life into Jonathan Knights’ rendition of the Inferno are in the following chronological order in the film: Director Victor Cook with Film Roman, Director Shuko Murase with Manglobe, Director Jon Sik Nam with Dong Woo, Director Lee Seunggyu and then Director Kim Sangjin with JM Animation, ending with Director Yasoumi Umetsu with Production I.G.

EXTRAS:
Bonus features include EA game trailer of the Dante’s Inferno video game and animatics which are storyboards with voiceovers run as a slide show of various characters and scenes taken from the film.

IN SUMMARY:
A tour of the Nine Circles of Hell as interpreted by six directors and different animation studios in this horror filled action animated movie. Often chilling and relentlessly bloodthirsty!