Infinite (2021)

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.

Review by msbreviews