movie review infinite

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Mark Wahlberg and Chiwetel Ejiofor in Infinite (2021)

A man discovers that his hallucinations are actually visions from past lives. A man discovers that his hallucinations are actually visions from past lives. A man discovers that his hallucinations are actually visions from past lives.

Antoine Fuqua
D. Eric Maikranz
Mark Wahlberg
Chiwetel Ejiofor
Sophie Cookson
1K User reviews
87 Critic reviews
28 Metascore
1 win & 3 nominations

Top cast 65

Evan McCauley

Bathurst 2020

Nora Brightman

Bathurst 1985

Brasserie Manager

Brasserie Owner

Brasserie Chef Joe

All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

Trivia The movie is based on the book "The Reincarnationist Papers" by D. Eric Maikranz . He found it difficult to catch the attention of a literary agent that would sell the book to Hollywood. On the first page of the book, he offered a commission to anyone who could get his book into Hollywood. Eighteen months later, he got an email from a Hollywood assistant director who found his book in a hostel in Nepal. In 2017, Paramount Pictures bought the rights.
Goofs During the interrogation, Bathurst comments that the room is completely sound proof and that the officers in the other room wouldn't hear the bullet, however both him and Evan hear the car racing and approaching from the outside. If the room was truly soundproof they would not have heard it and been crushed by it.

Garrick : Don't Worry. All this shit, it just gets weirder.

Connections Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Most Badass Mark Wahlberg Movie Moments (2022)
Soundtracks Legends Never Die Written by Jonny Pakfar (as Jonathan Pakfar) & Shane Eli Abrahams (as Shane Abrahams) Performed by Campfire Courtesy of Downtown Music

User reviews 1K

Interesting concept, lacklustre execution..

UrbanIntrovert
Jun 10, 2021
How long is Infinite? Powered by Alexa
June 10, 2021 (United States)
United States
24-26 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK (Car stunt, Mercure Hotel)
Paramount Pictures
New Republic Pictures
Di Bonaventura Pictures
See more company credits at IMDbPro
Runtime 1 hour 46 minutes
Dolby Digital

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Infinite Reviews

With so many past lives to choose from, the filmmakers of Infinite still repeated the same mistakes when there should have been limitless possibilities. Instead, it’s an endless exercise in suspense-free filmmaking.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Oct 9, 2022

Infinite is at times comedically convoluted, but thanks to brilliant world-building and stellar action setpieces, it’s riotously entertaining regardless.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 1, 2022

Perhaps the movie’s biggest shortcoming is that it spends a lot of time talking about relationships from the past rather than building any meaningful new ones on screen.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Aug 17, 2022

"Infinite" has all the elements you'd find in almost any action film. It just slightly misses the mark by not going all in and fully immersing the viewer in its reincarnation concept.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jun 21, 2022

One of those grueling efforts that renders the science fiction genre about as much fun as a root canal sans anesthetics.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | May 21, 2022

The writing is so haphazard and choppy, and it leapfrogs over what needs to be explained... you don't have any emotional investment.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | May 21, 2022

Brainless. The only skills the reincarnated team of assassins retain are fighting skills, leaving any provocative questions about transmigration unaddressed and any interesting ideas unexplored.

Full Review | Sep 17, 2021

What follows is a ploddingly predictable slog through a confusing combination of sci-fi cliches and vaguely mystical mambo-jumbo that basically strings out a series of mindless pyrotechnic set-pieces.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Sep 2, 2021

If you ever wondered what The Matrix would have been like if the lead was played by a fifty year old who was also kind of like Jason Bourne, here's your chance.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 15, 2021

If it's empty-vessel escapism you're after, this wonkily watchable affair will deliver what little you need.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 13, 2021

The visuals are spectacular, but things get increasingly derivative as they progress, and Jason Mantzoukas' ill-conceived comic-relief character falls clangingly flat.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 11, 2021

If you understand any of it, please enlighten me, because I am in the dark.

Full Review | Aug 10, 2021

The bad guys in Mark Wahlberg's reincarnation-themed action movie want to destroy the world so they never have to relive it all again. Having seen the film, I know the feeling

Full Review | Jul 14, 2021

Given the bona fides of everyone involved, it seemed reasonable to expect an entertaining adventure -- and at worst, dumb fun -- but the final product underwhelms at even the low end of expectations.

Full Review | Jul 13, 2021

...it unfurls more like an M. Night Shyamalan sci-fi misfire...

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 1, 2021

This action film about reincarnation tries to relive the plot beats of countless better films. The end result is a derivative, messy and forgettable film.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jun 25, 2021

Infinite boasts a high-concept story and extremely inventive action sequences, though Mark Wahlberg's performance leaves much to be desired.

Full Review | Original Score: 7 | Jun 23, 2021

Playing around with the concept of reincarnation is certainly promising, but Infinite makes the plot absurd for no reason. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jun 22, 2021

I'll give points for finely crafted action sequences and a handful of bold casting choices, but beyond that, Infinite is decidedly, whole-heartedly average.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 22, 2021

It's exactly the kind of big, silly, occasionally exciting spectacle that have come to define summer movie season, for better or worse. There's even an opening for a sequel.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 18, 2021

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‘Infinite’ Review: Stuck in a Loop

Antoine Fuqua’s formulaic reincarnation thriller is weighed down by déjà vu.

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By Devika Girish

There’s an early scene in “Infinite,” Antoine Fuqua’s sci-fi thriller on Paramount+ , that feels like an outtake from a social-issue drama. Mark Wahlberg’s Evan McCauley attends a job interview at a restaurant, where the slimy proprietor grills him about his past struggles with mental health before dismissing him rudely. “Who’s going to hire a diagnosed schizophrenic with a history of violence?” a dejected Evan wonders in voice-over as he walks back home. I was disarmed by the human-size pathos of this scene: Evan’s got bills to pay and pills to buy, same as us all.

But “Infinite” is a movie about superheroes, which means that the stakes have to become, at minimum, planet-size. As it turns out, Evan isn’t delusional: He’s special . He’s one of a select group of souls, called “the Infinite,” who are born (and reborn) with the ability to remember all their skills and experiences from past lives. Among this lot are bad guys who want to blow up the world and good guys who want to save it. (That both factions employ similar methods — crashing souped-up cars through city streets with nary a care for collateral damage — goes unaddressed, though I wouldn’t be surprised if a sequel devoted itself to hand-wringing about the greater good.)

Chiwetel Ejiofor plays the snarling alpha villain, Bathurst, who’s so sick of rinsing and repeating his existence that he’s invented a device — elegantly named “the Egg” — to raze all of life. Evan stopped him in a previous go-round and must do so again, but first he needs to unclog centuries of memories and superpowers. And so Nora (Sophie Cookson), one of the good gals, whisks Evan away to a mystical Wakanda-like destination, home to a Xavier Institute–like research center, where he undergoes a Batman–like training routine to save humanity from a Thanos-like villain’s Infinity Stone–like totem.

There’s a joke to be made here about the oppressive déjà vu of a movie about endless reincarnations, but I’d feel like a broken record for making it. To demand originality from these algorithmic franchise-starters is to miss the point. But the problem with Antoine Fuqua’s spin on the formula is that it’s mostly formula and hardly any spin. It’s as if Fuqua and his writers (Ian Shorr and Todd Stein) found the source code to the genre and 3-D printed it without any of the primal thrills that make such blockbusters watchable: intricate, ever-expanding world-building; giant objects whizzing into each other with satisfying booms; charismatic characters defying death with panache.

Instead, “Infinite” muddles around with some wishy-washy Eastern philosophy, and has mostly charmless actors (with the exception of Ejiofor, magnetic against the odds) duel and drive while mouthing exposition that lacks even a wisp of subtext. Evan and his ilk are called the “believers,” Bathurst’s crew are the “nihilists,” and Jason Mantzoukas plays a tech genius who controls his fancy gadgets with pronouncements like “Open weapons room door!”

What’s interesting about all this unabashed literalness is how nakedly it makes the case for the film’s own perpetuation. “Infinite” ends with a pop-psych spiel about how every new story is a chance at hope and possibility. Who can blame Bathurst for being tired of reliving the same stuff over and over again? Yet while he wants to burn the world down, I’m still holding out hope for the movies.

Infinite Rated PG-13 for big explosions and bloody duels. Running time 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Paramount+.

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