Inferno (1998 TV Movie)
4/10
I Guess It Could Have Been Good
25 May 2004
INFERNO starts off with a fairly impressive for a TVM starscape effect . We`re also introduced to a scientist who`s called Heller . Don`t you get it ? Heller , Hell-er , Inferno . So I guess someone on the production had some intelligence . However it does become more and more obvious as the TVM progresses that intelligence has been discarded throughout the storyline in order to appeal to an American TVM audience

The story itself is overwhelmed by subplots featuring umpteen stock TVM characters like the tough liberal schoolteacher who`s trying to save a home boy from a life of crime , the doctor who`s lost his medical licence etc . In fact the story concentrates far more on these characters than the approaching disaster that all the potential tension and drama the scenario might have had soon goes up in a puff of smoke , and being a TVM we just know that there won`t be a downbeat ending

There is an onscreen problem I noticed and that is everytime there`s an explosion there`s a massive fireball which looks ridiculous not to mention physically impossible . Look at the scene where the national guard are in a fight with a gang . A soldier fires a grenade into a tower block and the whole building explodes in a fire ball . What a small greanade containing no more than a few ounces of high explosive can do that ! No it can`t . There`s also another scene of army engineers blowing up a dam with plastic explosive and the same fireball effect is seen . Can directors please note that high explosive is not the same as napalm

Having said that I did find INFERNO highly watchable for a TVM and at no time did I find myself wanting to turn it off . It did have some potential and let me repeat the special effects are fairly good considering the budget and it`s not as bad a TVM as some people are making out
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