Directed By Antoine Fuqua

Starring – Mark Wahlberg, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sophie Cookson

The Plot – For Evan McCauley (Wahlberg), skills he has never learned and memories of places he has never visited haunt his daily life. Self-medicated and on the brink of a mental breakdown, Evan is sought by a secret group that call themselves “Infinites,” revealing to him that his memories may be real, but they are from multiple past lives. The Infinites bring Evan into their extraordinary world, where a gifted few are given the ability to be reborn with their memories and knowledge accumulated over centuries. With critical secrets buried in his past, Evan must work with the Infinites to unlock the answers in his memories in a race against time to save humanity from one of their own (Ejiofor) who seeks to end all life to stop what he views as the cursed, endless cycle of reincarnation.

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some bloody images, strong adult language and brief drug use

Infinite – Official Trailer (2021) Mark Wahlberg, Chiwetel Ejiofor – YouTube

POSITIVES

– Tasteful ingredients. For anyone intrigued by a good science fiction premise, “Infinite” may just be your satisfying cup of genre infused tea. From a plot perspective, themes about reincarnation, advanced technology, and even muscle memory are elements that play to the poignancy of the narrative, underwriting it with a layer of dramatic longing and even tragedy that outlines the dreaded dispositions of its characters. In addition to this, the hint of futuristic technology dispersed in some quite clever details and inventions permeating in a present day narrative is one that is easily accessible for the familiarity of the backdrop that remains prominent throughout, keeping the intrigue on the ideologies and the world-building instead of the visuals. This allows the movie to pride itself on substance over style, all the while maintaining the essence of fantasy in science fiction that makes this an ambitious effort above all else.

– Invigorating sound. While a lot of my problems with the movie’s action sequences revolve around the visual side of its presentations, which I will get to later, the invasiveness of the mixing and editing for the movie’s audible capacities are among the best that I have heard so far in 2021. This was not only the single biggest aspect of the movie for me, in terms of enjoyment, but it’s also the lone instance of production during the film that I feel gives it a big screen emphasis, complete with rattling intensity and a full-fledged scale for devastation that conveys storytelling in the foreground with a captivation persistently elevating in the background. It’s especially rewarding that the levels themselves aren’t pushed to ear-shattering levels to attain effectiveness, instead zeroing in on the crescendo of chaos and carnage that is reflective of a variety of set pieces within air, land, and sea that are magnified with this gripping scheme.

– Fluid pacing. Boredom is never an aspect that this movie becomes saddled with. Part of that stems from the bat-shit reality of the world and feats that these characters juggle with constantly throughout the narrative, but for my money it stems from the jaunted pacing from Fuqua’s directing that appeals to the urgency of the conflict. This is especially realized during the consistency of the sequencing, mainly during the first forty-five minutes or so, which energizes the audience from the get-go, with one of the more enthralling opening introductions in recent memory. From there, it maintains interest by detailing the capabilities of those deemed “Gifted”, primarily in the frailty of their memories whose obscurity for reality visually convey the uncertainty in Wahlberg’s demeanor, allowing us to see matters in the exact way he interprets them. Even still, there’s individual moments that I became disinterested with, but never anything compromising to the rhythm of storytelling that never overstays its welcome.

NEGATIVES

– Spoiled flavor. Even despite the originality in concepts that I previously heralded the movie’s concept for, the execution of which feels watered down and uninspiring, especially in the derivative nature within some of its movements. This movie reminded me of many better predecessors of the genre, mainly “The Matrix” for a protagonist with a particular set of skills without the ability to unlock them until he meets a character to help him open his eyes, “The Bourne franchise” for the amnesiac aspect of the protagonist unable to remember previous memories, and even “Wanted” for the movements within the cinematography that persisted a little too close toward the tracks of familiarity for my interpretation. Because of such, “Infinite” is a film that wants to be a greatest hits collection of time-honored favorites, but it refuses to balance it with anything new to attain any semblance of identity for this movie, underwhelming with a derivative direction that can’t suppress the constant idea that there’s a better movie that we could be watching at any second during the 106 minute run time.

– Disappointing cast. When you consider the magnitude of talent invested to this property, it’s a bit shocking to see how miserably off the mark each of them are, and for entirely different reasons. This is what I like to refer to as ‘The Good, the bad, and the ugly’ encompassing of a trio of performances, in which each actor prescribes a level of particular disappointment to their respective casting. For Wahlberg, it’s a total miscasting that is as bad as some of the most notable of the previous decade of cinema. Not only is Wahlberg’s underwhelming deliveries condescending to the integrity of the character outline, but there’s nothing transformative about his delve that makes me see anyone other than Mark Wahlberg, and not a character, emoting on my screen. From there, the overacting of Ejiofor is cranked up to eleven, complete with strange accents and overzealous deliveries that reminded me of Eddie Redmayne’s villainous turn in “Jupiter Ascending”, both for all of the wrong reasons of scenery-chewing infamy. Finally, Dylan O’ Brien does a solid enough job for what’s asked of him, but he’s only in the movie for five minutes, and considering he was marketed heavily as a main character in the various trailers shopped to audiences, it makes me wonder if O’Brien saw the writing on the wall with this movie, and decided less is best for the integrity of his career.

– Laughable narration. At three different instances in this movie, beginning, second arc, and ending, we the audience are treated to Wahlberg audibly narrating lines of detail to play against the movie’s complete lack of characterization, making for audible hand-holding of the worst kind for us the audience. Not only is the narration unnecessary considering it’s only repeating what we can colorfully and capably interpret in the foreground movements of these scenes, but it’s a fine example of the horrendously bad dialogue that adorns this film throughout, conveying a complete lack of subtlety that makes any scene that follows feel easily detectable for the obviousness that is more than hinted towards. Typically, I am someone who hates narration already in movies, but the work here by Wahlberg is so arduous and unappealing that it almost feels like one of the many measures of this film originally moving in a completely different direction, and one whose inclusion here doesn’t quite gel with the structure of the first act, where the movements by characters are among the easiest to interpret in any science fiction thriller.

– Momentum halts. This screenplay is a complete mess, not only for the lack of entertaining value that it completely omits from the finished product, but also for the clumsy exposition dumps that frequently gets in the way with the unraveling of its narrative. In particular, there’s so many rules, characters, and psychologies to the movements of the stories that we often have to stop, like a video game, during every one of them, and review it for us the audience. As you can understand, this is already frustrating when compared to the bumbling narration that I previously mentioned, but made all the more aggravating when you consider the dialogue surrounding them results in this long-winded, heavy-handed series of pauses that allude to a bigger picture, all the while quite often alleviating my intrigue with a completely telegraphed obviousness that unintentionally gives away key plot points that are presented as macguffins later on. Even an hour into the movie, you’re still learning new information about anything other than characters that will eventually come in handy later on, but it’s all compressed into this straining time allowance and rushed storytelling that prove this property would’ve been better served to be a miniseries on Paramount Plus, instead of a feature length film with limitations to properly convey it.

– Painful action. Believe me, that isn’t a compliment to illustrate the effectiveness of its brutality, but rather alluding to the series of decisions with the production that stitch together nearly every aspect of frustrating action in contemporary cinema. First off, the editing is revolting, maintaining a five cut consistency every seven seconds that not only strains your eyes for having to re-detect where each character materializes during any given cut, but also overcomplicates movements in sequence that aren’t ambitious enough to require machine-gun cutting. Secondly, the immersive cinematography from Mauro Fiore offers a transferring gravity and volume to the integrity of each impactful sequence, but complicated in a way that distorts the beauty of the movie’s presentation while twisting and turning through set pieces that are truly painful to watch with your eyes glued to the screen. Finally, the magnitude of special effects in this movie resonate a Windows 95 encompassing, complete with lukewarm C.G in stunt-work that rivals the “Fast and Furious” movies for complete lunacy. Unfortunately, unlike a majority of those movies, “Infinite” isn’t self-aware, so the sheer magnitude of these mind-numbing instances of gravitational defiance are a bit much for my investment, and accordingly pulled me out of each sequence with abrupt insanity.

– Suspending disbelief. That stroll down memory lane for these regular people committing superhero feats reminded me that they are second to the movie’s complete abandonment of logic that plagues the ideas within its world-building. Some instances are minimally intriguing, like the idea that Wahlberg and Mora (Sophie Cookson) are supposed to be the same age on-screen, despite their more than 19 year difference in real life, but others revolve around a lack of continuity that prove no time was spent in production with the makers of the film immersing themselves in the details of their unique world. One instance revolves around Wahlberg’s character falling off of a wall after escaping. It’s super confusing because he lands on a car to bridge his fall, but in the next shot, it’s a completely different car. Then in a flash back sequence of the same scene, it’s the original car before the substitution. Matters like these would be forgivable if they only happened once, but this film is full of dumbed down instances like these, and for a director as heralded and accomplished as Fuqua, this is simply inexcusable.

My Grade: 3/10 or F