Infinite

I stumbled upon the 2021 movie "Infinite" and actually hadn't even heard about it prior to getting to sit down to watch it. Weird, I know, right?

But I must admit that the movie's synopsis sounded interesting enough, and usually Mark Wahlberg tends to provide adequate entertainment, so of course I gave "Infinite" a watch.

And I will say that writers Ian Shorr and Todd Stein definitely managed to churn out a story that provided with solid entertainment for the course of the movie. And it was a storyline that actually had a lot of interesting aspects to it. So yeah, I was definitely well entertained while watching "Infinite".

This movie is driven by a good combination of action and storytelling. Sure, this wasn't a tongue in cheek narrative that required all that much attention from the viewers, but the writers managed to make the storyline deep enough to actually involve the audience a bit more than just popcorn munching.

And yeah, the storyline does come off as being rather predictable, which it also is at times.

There were some moments in the movie where the laws of physics were simply and blatantly just disregarded, which made me curl my toes. But it was just a minor thing, because the movie proved to be entertaining.

Sure, this is essentially your average run-of-the-mill action movie with Mark Wahlberg, and a lot of things could be said for his acting. But I was entertained for the action ride that it was.

I am rating "Infinite" a six out of ten stars. The movie is worth a watch, as it combines action and story well enough.

I saw the trailer for this movie not too long ago and was expecting something great. I was under the impression that I would be watching an action packed sc-fi movie with a enticing story.

Unfortunately, this movie fell short of my expectations. Right off the bat the movie throws you into a monologue from the main character telling you about the story. There seems to be a strong attempt to relate to the audience which did not work for me. There was more telling than showing for the first 1/3 of the movie to try to set it up.

In addition, there was a significant amount of obvious CGI. With what looks like is a large movie budget, the dialogue and visuals fell short of expectations. There were too many cliche moments. This is a movie that one can sit back and enjoy, but not one that I would recommend seeking out.

The concept is very cool, however the execution was disappointing.

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I really appreciate Antoine Fuqua's career as a director. From the beloved classic Training Day to the highly entertaining The Equalizer films, Fuqua has demonstrated skillful handling of action sequences. As expected, Infinite delivers several fighting scenes and car chases, mostly riveting and quite enjoyable. The third act gets extremely over-the-top concerning the action set pieces, which are only tolerable due to a special yet underdeveloped character trait that ultimately justifies the more absurd moments. Mauro Fiore's camera work and Conrad Buff IV's editing are decent enough, but the last act features too much shaky cam and excessive cuts for my taste.

Story-wise, that's where things get tricky. Ian Shorr's screenplay boasts a genuinely interesting premise with exciting world-building to support it. However, the tiresome voice-over from Mark Wahlberg - who offers a good performance just as the rest of the cast - holds heavy exposition that's then repeated in dialogues across the movie, stretching the runtime unnecessarily. This narration rarely adds anything relevant to the story or impacts the viewer's opinion about the protagonist.

In addition to this, it's one of those films that carries tremendous storytelling potential but never reaches it. Personally, I truly find the concept intriguing, but its development doesn't leave the base of its premise. In fact, just by watching the main trailer, most of the world-building is given to the audience in those few minutes. Honestly, in better hands, this movie could have been the beginning of a new franchise with infinite - no pun intended- possibilities to make sequels, prequels, spin-offs, or even trigger the start of a TV show.

As it is, Infinite is nothing more than an inoffensively entertaining flick that could have been much, much better.

Rating: C.

You can tell that this script was taken from a book and was pressed into a 1h 45min runtime for Hollywood.

Result: Unintelligent plot without enough character development, over the top acting, silly one-liners and too much bang-bang to cover up the plot holes and the inconsistencies.

Some good things: A few of the actors seem to have tried to take the material seriously. Also, the photography is up to par here with great sets and beautiful visuals.

And most of the action sequences are impressive.

So these are a few reasons to watch if you want to switch off and just kill some time with this mindless flick. I personally didn't hate it but...the plot...can't be saved.

Maybe if it was 2,5h long it could have been a bit better...? We will never know.

5,9/10.

A very intriguing concept turned into a big slick shiny MarkieW look-at-me object requiring constant 'juvenile fiction' level narrative exposition and incessant suspension of disbelief to the point of disassociation with reality, One of those scripts that won't even obey the parameters of the physics set by the world they created thus making 'stupid' the subtext of what would otherwise be really cool action and ideas.

I wrote that a half hour in and didn't need to change it by the end.