ST. LOUIS — Early on in Antoine Fuqua's "Infinite," Evan McCauley (Mark Wahlberg) builds a classic Japanese sword, a blade that rivals no other long knife in the world. The man has no little clue how exactly he knows how to construct such a grand weapon; he just does incredible things that carry no memory. He then trades this sword for schizophrenic medication. The deal goes south and he finishes the evening off by falling off a building onto a car.
Welcome to a movie that makes absolutely zero sense. The only thing I took away from this movie is a creeping headache and a detective-type urge to understand why Paramount took their big, expensive streaming swing of the spring with this awful mess of a movie. "Infinite" is the unofficial "Transformers" sequel that no asked for, yet a talented director decided to make. This is like combining a trashed Christopher Nolan story idea with Michael Bay's "The Island" and coming up with "Battlefield Earth" demon spawn... or something like that.
Fuqua is a director with a wide spectrum of films, an owner of misfit toys that occasionally hit hard yet often miss the mark. I kept reminding he was the guy who gave us Denzel Washington's finest performance throughout this new film.
Wahlberg is a fine actor and capable of versatile film work, but he can slip into autopilot mode more than one would like. He's in dead-on "The Happening" and "Max Payne" setting mode here as a man with unlimited capabilities and no recollection of how he got them. When a mysterious man in a $5,000 suit shows up with random artifacts from history thinking he's come back into contact with a long-lost face, Evan has no clue what's going on. Neither did I. The plot centers around people who are forever reincarnated (no explanation how or why) via this idea that past and future lives can be connected, even in different bodies. Are you still with me?
Ejiofor does his best to create some sort of antagonist, with a wardrobe that can't be wrinkled or damaged no matter how many times it's shot at or stabbed. "Infinite" stretches disbelief to unimaginable levels, especially when it comes to bodies surviving constant pain and torture. In one sequence of events, Wahlberg is severely wounded and limping around.
A few minutes later, he's being dropped out of an aircraft while strapped into a dune buggy. Soon after, he's engaging in gun battles and sword fights, with tons of twists and turns, before flying a motorcycle off a cliff and onto a different aircraft. The actor is in terrific shape but come on... this is getting a lot out of hand.
The best way to soak in Ian Shorr's screenplay is to take away all the seriousness of the plot and treat it like a comedy. Every time the characters drift even close to comedy, just calibrate the rest of the film as such. One of the few decent scenes happens during Wahlberg and Ejiofor's initial meeting, where the actors just trade dialogue and bewildered faces at the words coming out of their mouth. If only "Infinite" had its tongue firmly planted in its cheek.
Dylan O'Brien fans will rejoice in a very small part, but Jason Mantzoukas is the only reason to finish this movie. First spotted in FX's "The League" as the guy who takes a dump in your bathroom and proceeds to raise his hand for a high five, Mantzoukas leans into that "don't take this serious, bro" mentality. He generates laughs just by reading his lines with the efficacy of a man who knows what kind of movie he's in. Too bad that's only about 10 minutes of the movie. Sophia Cookson's Mora has big impact potential but her performance is lacking, if I'm being nice about it.
Fuqua's whole film is lacking. It's lacks a meaning to exist. Why spend so much money on a movie with more CGI than personality? If you make it to the end of "Infinite," you will find a newfound joy for the fact that every movie must end at some point.
Even worse, it uses schizophrenia-a real and terrible mental disorder-as a pure plot gimmick here. No care or interest for it, just the fact that someone could maintain a day without an eye twitch. A bad movie is one thing. One that tries to use a serious medical condition as a crutch for the hero to prop his fate up on, without a real dive into its wear and tear, is extremely disappointing.
Skip this one. Trust me.
