To begin, Dante starts his journey in this movie as he rides back to his beloved Beatrice. In this movie, Dante takes a lot longer to come to grips with the sins he committed during the Crusades. Either that, or he wants to play dumb because he still believes that he was absolved of his sins by the Bishop who sent him and his comrades off to war. It's kind of difficult to sympathize with a character that wants to act like deeds like the willful murder of innocents wasn't going to matter to his fiancée. It's also a bit hard to fathom Dante's sudden change. Sure, it's war, but Dante seems to be able to turn on love and dedication and turn off blood thirst and rage like a faucet. Very little is done to flesh out Dante as a rounded character, or one contemplating his terrible deeds.
And so the formula is set for the entire movie. This isn't going to be a psychological trip, a torturous trip through Dante's soul. Nope, Dante's gonna kill the boat that takes him to purgatory. He's gonna kill Cerberus. He's gonna kill that greedy, fat dude, he's gonna kill that freaky woman. He's gonna pretty much slash his way through absolving his sins. Oh, he'll yell for Beatrice every now and then, and he definitely shows his repentance and dedication by the end of the movie. It's just that the journey reflects more on Dante's muscle than those things.
This may be a fine formula for some, but then we get to the art style, or styles, rather. There are several studios that worked on this production. So in every few levels of Hell, the art style will change dramatically. Some are better than others, but that's a matter of taste. There's one studio that loves to give Dante long flowing hair. There's another that gives him eyes the size of saucers. There's another that changes his proportions to practically three fourths torso, one forth legs. Mind you, it's all decent animation, but chances are you'll like only one small fraction of the Inferno, and tolerate your way through the rest.
I'm caught between wanting more character development and emotion out of this production, and still respecting it for what it is. After all, it is a companion to a game that is billed as a "decent God of War clone." The bonus features don't do much for redeeming it, as one is a trailer, and the other is just storyboards. Don't look for retelling of the classic poem, and don't look for more than you'll find in the plot of the game and you should enjoy this production.
