Genre: Adventure/Fantasy
Director: Tom Tykwer
Writer: Mo Buck
Based on the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Sequel to Purgatorio
Cast: James Franco, Kate Mara, Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Guy Pearce, Aaron Eckhart, Bill Pullman, Michael Cera, John Malkovich, Edie Falco, Tom Hiddleston, Ian McShane
Plot: The garden of Eden is completely destroyed, Virgil, Adam and Eve are dead, lying on the ground. The flowers have died too. King Midas (Ian McShane) was victorious in the battle. He sits on a rock, smiling. He lies on it, trying to sleep. Someone else has arrived. He steps on Virgil's corpse and kicks Adam. He slowly makes his way to Midas, who isn't aware of his presence. Out of nowhere, the new visitor plants his sword in King Midas, who's brutally waken up. He screams, SATAN! The devil himslef left hell to chase Dante. In his human form, Satan (Gary Oldman) explains to Midas, right before he dies, that he killed him, because he wasn't able to stop Dante from progressing in his journey. Midas breathes for the last time and Satan drinks from the river and starts his ascend.
Dante (James Franco) wakes up, he's disoriented. Beatrice (Kate Mara) hasn't woke up yet. Dante decides to explore a little bit. It's pitch dark around him, the ground is a sort of grey rock, with no water or plants in the horizon. He climbs a small mountain and sees where he really is, the Moon. He hears someone walking behind him and grabs his sword. Someone touches him on the shoulder and Dante takes out his sword, quickly turning around. It's a woman : Constance of Sicily (Edie Falco). She tells Dante that she feels a great threat coming and that he should move fast. She says to him that come people may force him to do things, but he should always listen to his heart. They go down the mountain and sit near Beatrice, who finally wakes up. She meets Constance and they have a brief exchange of words. She tells them where to go next, as they need to travel with portals from planet to planet, in order to reach the Empyrean, the end of Dante's journey in the afterlife. Constance says she has a vision and she shows it to them. They see a man, who Constance claims is Satan, starting his ascend to Heaven. They must move and they must move quick. Constance says she'll stay here and protect the Moon with her army, just like she did for centuries. Dante and Beatrice start running and they enter the portal. As they're vanishing away, they witness someone arrive on the Moon and Constance's army arriving.
Dante and Beatrice arrive on Mercury. They see someone making a public speech, talking about the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. He says everybody should be ambitious, have a dream. He ends his speech and goes to talk to Dante and Beatrice. Justinian (Tim Roth) the Emperor says he heard about what happened at the garden of Eden and on the Moon. He says Dante has a great battle ahead of him. He says that he can give the command of his army to one of his general and come with them, he'll show them the way. He's ready to die for Dante, the man who escaped hell after being wrongly sent there. Dante and Beatrice accept his offer. Justinian gets back on stage and says his goodbyes to his people. The population of Mercury follows them to the portal and all three of them disappear.
Satan steps over Constance's body. He cleans his hands in a river and enters the portal to reach Mercury.
Dante, Beatrice and Justinian arrive on Venus, the planet of Love. Everyone seems to get along, the mood is happy and everyone has a smile on their face. They walk through the streets and stop in front of a troubadour, Folquet de Marseille (Guy Pearce). He sings a song about a man who fled Hell and is now making his way in the afterlife. His voice is mesmerizing and everyone is captivated by his music, almost like a spell. Dante interrupts, saying it's actually him. Folquet can't believe it and the audience members suddendly all want to meet Dante. Justinian interrupts them, saying they don't have the time. Folquet wants to accompany them, saying he's more useful and resourceful than he looks like. Before they go, Folquet guides them to a public space and everyone magically starts listening to him once he starts signing. He sings a song about a great war coming and how, for the sake of Love, every people on Venus should help defend the planet against Evil. Once he's done, people of Venus start going back to theri home. The group goes to the portal. Beatrice takes a look behind her and sees the people of Venus in armors with swords and bows. She asks Folquet how he did it and he says that's what he does. They step into the portal.
Satan is seen laughing in front of a burning city. He grabs a man who fainted on the ground and asks him where is the portal. He indicates him where to find it and Satan impales him with his sword. He steps into the portal.
The group appears on the Sun. The desert-like landscape makes for a wonderful and mostly hot environment. The walk on the Sun's surface and struggle to find people. Folquet sees a camp just beside a tree, a single tree, surrounded by the sand of the desert. They arrive at the camp and see a couple of poor, skinny people, being helped by a man. He feeds them and hydrates them from large amount of food. He presents himself, St. Francis (Aaron Eckhart) St. Francis tells Dante that he needs to talk to him, but first he needs to take care of these people. After he's done, he tells Dante and his group about a vision he had about Satan's victory on the Moon, Mercury and Venus. We see Satan destroying the planet of Venus and teleporting himself to the Sun. St. Francis warns them that they must leave and invoke the spirits of his friends, St. Bonaventure and St. Dominic to help defend the Sun. They leave in a hurry, in Mars' direction.
The group, now consisting of Dante, Beatrice, Justinian, Folquet de Marseille and St. Francis reach Mars, home of the cosmos' army. They watch a parade from a balcony and decide to eat a little bit while they're waiting for it to end. St. Francis has another vision as Satan is destroying the Sun. He raises sandstorms and throws fire at small campments, killing everybody there. A celestial battle starts between Satan and the two remaining people on the Sun, the spirits of Bonaventure and Dominic. The parade is finally over and Dante meets with one of their leader, Cacciaguida (Bill Pullman). He tells Dante that he wants to accompany him to help him defeat the great danger that's coming. Dressed from head to toes in a heavy armor, Cacciaguida is one of the best fighter to ever live. Beatrice, who likes him, accepts his offer. They are slowly walking towards the portal, when they hear people starting to fight. They see flames coming from a place near the portal. They start running to the other side of the town to get to portal that leads to Jupiter, while Mars is starting to get destroyed by Satan.
They're all able to reach Jupiter without getting injured during the destruction of Mars. Jupiter consists of one huge city, where everyone works under the authority of the Supreme Leader. It's a planet where everyone is equal and justice is always delivered to those to wrong others. Folquet starts to sing, not listening to Cacciaguida and Justinian who suggest him otherwise, but he does it anyway. Since his voice controls people, law officers are brought to see what magical being is controlling Jupiter's citizens. As they clearly don't have the time to face a trial and explain what's happening to them, Beatrice starts leading the group, who's running through the streets of the city, tryting to avoid the law officers. As they turn a corner, Beatrice is grabbed by someone who hides them in his home. That someone is David (Michael Cera), a rather diminutive man. He says he saw in his dreams what's going to happen soon and he must accompany them to their destination. Justinian asks what he could do to help them, as he's skinny and weak. St. Francis says he has an idea, but they must reac Saturn first, their next stop. When they're exiting the home, Satan starts to attack the city. David claims he'll be busy here, so they clearly have the time to reach the portal that will take them to Saturn. Satan easily sends off the law officers and soldiers sent to stop him. He burns houses to the ground and reanimates people, forming an army. Dante's group reach the portal and they teleport to Saturn.
On Saturn, it's always night time, always dark, never sunny. Most citizens of Saturn never leave their home, only when it's time to take food from the reserves. St. Francis leads the group, taking over from Beatrice, as he needs to find an old friend to do something about David. They enter a small chapel, where someone is praying. Francis kneels besides him and they start praying togheter. They both get up at the same time and Francis presents them his friend, Peter Damian (John Malkovich). Justinian and Cacciaguida asks them how an old man can help them achieve Dante's journey and Francis tells them to wait. They sense a great battle coming, there's no need to remind them. Francis and Damian ask for David to stand still, in a circle. They start saying something in latin and David starts to grow. They just transformed him into a giant. They say they need to go away fast, danger is coming. Beatrice claims the next portal is special, because it bends time. Time moves slower in the next circle of heaven, so the faster they reach portal, the more time they will have to seperate themselves from Satan. They exit Damian's chapel, run to the portal and enter it.
Satan gets out of the portal on Saturn. He slowly walks on a path leading to a village. At one point, he stops and turns around. He puts his palms up in the air and says things in latin. Several beings appear, they do not look human at all. They’re all armed. It’s the army he formed out of the citizen of Jupiter. He intends to make it bigger here on Saturn. He shouts something at his army, who enter the houses and start killing people. Satan smiles.
Dante’s group is sitting in a circle. Beatrice explains that this is the last station, the last circle Dante needs to get through to complete his journey and reach heaven. She tells Dante that the only reason she insisted on forming a team instead of racing through all the circles is because the portal isn’t always active here. It only works for a couple of hours a day and since time moves slower, they’re stuck here for a long time before it opens again. After Constance told them a great danger was coming, she knew they would have to face it here, there was no other way around it. When they turned around to see someone attacking Constance, Beatrice saw Satan. She knew it was him. She was told what his human form looks like by someone who was really old and the man she saw seemed to fit the description. The others are all a little scared, but they’re ready to fight for Dante, the first man to escape from Hell, in his quest to reach heaven. They start to prepare for the upcoming battle.
Everyone is sleeping and Folquet de Marseille is on patrol duty. He witnesses someone coming out of the portal and he starts to sing to wake up everyone. They all stand in line and Satan just completed his teleportation. He starts walking towards them. Dante tells him to stop, but he continues. Justinian and Cacciaguida start running in Satan’s direction, but he sends them flying with a fire blast. The others are stunned, but Folquet starts singing to bring them back on their feet. Satan stopped walking and starts saying things in latin again. Several beings start to appear. Francis and Peter know what Satan is doing after taking one good look at each other, Francis nods. Peter Damian gets away from the line and starts screaming. A white orb appears in his hands and starts to shoot light beams all around. The majority of the beings are destroyed, but Damian falls on the ground, unconscious. As his army continues to appear, Satan starts to fly in the air and protects himself in a magic bubble. They starts hammering on Satan’s army. David uses his newly acquired superhuman strength, Dante, Beatrice, Justinian and Cacciaguida cutting them in half with their sword, Folquet signing to heal David’s multiple wounds he got from the supernatural beings and St. Francis invoking his magic to kill them. They kill a lot of them, but Satan seemingly has an infinite number of beings at his service. The group is all backed up in a circle, with St. Francis in the middle. He starts to scream and closes the portal who can lead to Saturn. Satan’s army stops growing, but Francis faded. It’s Cacciaguida who’s the next to fall, being torn in half by one of the beasts. Folquet finds the time to tell Dante that he doesn’t think he still has a purpose in this battle. He starts to sing a song and transforms into Virgil (Tom Hiddleston), Dante’s old pal. They form a circle again. They start to get the upper hand and Satan comes down. They all want to stop him, but he protects himself with a fire barrier. He throws fireballs at David, who falls on the ground, also killing Justinian in the process, who caught fire after David tries to deck one of the fireballs. It all comes down to Dante, Beatrice and Virgil, against Satan. His fire barrier dies off and they start to attack him. He tries to throw fireballs at them, but they’re able to avoid them. They’re now tightening the circle around Satan. He knows he wouldn’t be able to kill two of them without one of them reaching him, so tells them they will do it the old-fashioned way. He invokes a fire sword. They take turns attacking him, but he sends them off. He quickly cuts Virgil and Beatrice cuts Satan on the leg, he’s limping. He concentrates his attack Virgil, the weakest link. The disarms him, cutting his two arms and cuts his head, who rolls next to Dante’s foot. Beatrice looks at Satan and his wound closed and disappeared. She knows they won’t be able to kill him easily. They continue to try to kill Satan in an impressive fight, but he somehow remains alive. The portal leading to heaven opens behind Satan. Beatrice looks at Dante and she starts running in Satan’s direction, with her guard down. He stars cutting her in pieces as she screams. Dante comes from behind and in one big swing, cuts Satan’s head off. Beatrice is on her knees, fighting to stay alive. She tells Dante to go and he says he’s sorry. He doesn’t want to go. During his journey, everyone kept making sacrifices for him and he doesn’t understand why everyone did this for him. He doesn’t think he deserved it. Beatrice tells him with her last breath that the moment she saw him, she knew he was the one who would defeat evil and be successful in his journey. He tells her again that he doesn’t want to go. She starts crying and for the first time, uses her magic, to push Dante into the portal before it closes. The last thing Dante sees before disappearing, is Beatrice falling down, dead.
Dante is rises up in the air, in a sort of air column. It’s all black first, but as he rises up, it changes to a sort of light blue. He sees several big moments from his journey and the face of everyone who helped him in his adventure. An emotional Dante lands on a golden cloud of dust and is facing a huge golden door. He walks towards it and it opens. He gets through it. He’s amazed by what he’s seeing, but we can’t see it. He says one thing before the screen cuts to the credits : heaven.
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