Inferno (2016)

"There is a switch. If you throw it, half the people on earth will die, but if you don't, in 100 years, the human race will be extinct." -Bertrand Zobrist

*SPOILERS*  Read further at your own peril.

I have nothing particularly pro or con to say about the acting or execution of Dan Brown's novel, Inferno, as a movie.  I read the book and then was pleasantly surprised to learn the movie was coming out. In fact, the ending of the book I thought one of the more audacious and surprising endings I've read in a while. Inferno is unleashed. The world cannot go back.  1/3 of all people are now sterile and 1/3 of all our progeny will be sterile from this time forward. And we have decide what to do next.

That is an ending. It is chilling and real and full of actual terror about the prospect of what we can do to ourselves, what has been done, and what we will do going forward. Do we work to keep our decreased fecundity a secret? Do we attempt to undo genetic tampering on mass scale? Should we even try? Can we trust ourselves to not screw up worse? The new world Inferno, the book, leaves the reader in is fascinating and plays to our current relationship with our planet, ourselves, and our creator(s) -which is now us.

The movie version ends with Robert Langdon and Co. saving the day before the virus can be released.  No harm.  Earth saved!  Yay!

And it made me incredibly sad.  So, I have to ask, screenplayer writer, David Koepp 1; WHY?

Why change this most magnificent and interesting ending to one so simple? Are audiences not prepared for a more challenging if chilling finale? Does it make for bad ticket sales? Does it make for a poor narrative? Why?

On a scale of Harris Tweed to Chamois cloth, I give Inferno 1.9 out of 5 stars.