Infinite Movie Review
Brad Sturdivant
June 19th, 2021
If you’re asking yourself “what is Infinite?”, you’re probably not alone. Paramount unceremoniously dropped a trailer barely two weeks before they dumped INFINITE on Paramount Plus (which might be the most underrated of all the streaming services). At first, I thought it was an attempt to jump start interest in their streaming platform, but after sitting through it, I realized that this was their way of shooting the film straight to video, which is something they could never have done given the A-list status of star Mark Wahlberg and the credentials of director Antoine Fuqua. But…no one would have blamed the studio if they weren’t looking forward to a theatrical release. INFINITE feels like someone with a second grade education tried to make a Christopher Nolan film.
In this world, there are “Infinites”; people that get reincarnated throughout history. Although a common idea amongst several religions, the twist here is that the people remember all of their past lives with vivid clarity, giving them uncommon abilities that would obviously take multiple lifetimes to develop. The Infinites are split into two warring factors; those that want humanity to grow and survive and those that just want it to end. We pick up with our hero, Evan (Wahlberg) as a normal guy just trying to cope with his mental issues. Turns out, he had a car accident as a teenager and that’s why he can’t remember his past lives. But in reality, he’s an important dude in the Infinites war; he’s the reincarnation of Treadway (played in flashbacks by Dylan O’Brien), who hid a life-destroying “egg” right before he died the last time. The other Infinites have been waiting for him to come back so they could put an end to the war and either destroy or detonate the egg.
The first thing that’s offputting about INFINITE (there are many, this is the first) is that we’re supposed to believe Mark Wahlberg is 35 years old. Why? Why have Treadway die in 1985? Why not push it back 15 years or even 10 years so the audience can believe Wahlberg is 45 or 50 (he turned 50 in 2020, but could pass for a man in his late 40’s). I know that’s a weird thing to cling to, but it kicks off a series of poor decisions from the filmmakers, the worst being casting Wahlberg in the first place. This is highlighted when Dylan O’Brien does more to add intensity and urgency to his character in the brief flashbacks than Wahlberg does in the entire film.
The basic premise feels like something you’d find in a long running series on the Sci-fi channel. If depicted over the course of multiple seasons, the idea of multiple lives and skills would resonate a bit better. As a movie, everything feels clumsily crammed in to two hours and since the audience doesn’t get to know or care about anyone, we find ourselves kind of rooting for the bad guys to win so it will all just end.
Another frustrating thing about INFINITE is that there’s clearly not a good movie in here. It’s not like the filmmakers botched a great idea, their idea was just a hodgepodge of other, better ideas (HIGHLANDER comes to mind, as does the Netflix film THE OLD GUARD). Throw in a phoned-in Wahlberg and a disinterested Fuqua and you’re left with a very unsatisfying sci-fi action film.
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