Like the Universe and Human Stupidity

I really am souring on the modern action movie. But somehow, I wound up watching Infinite (2021), directed by Antoine Fuqua.

It starts about 30 years ago, with a ridiculous three-way car chase - ridiculous like jumping off an unfinished elevated highway onto a crane. Then it looks like everyone involved dies.

But we already know what's going on - because we get a voice-over. It seems that some rare people remember their previous lives: the Infinites. But some hate this and want to get off the cycle of rebirth. But they aren't Buddhists. They are the Bad Guys.

In the present day, Mark Wahlberg is a broke guy with some psychosis - voices in the head. He can't afford his anti-psychotics or rent, but he does have a forge that allows him to make old-style samurai swords. Somehow he just knows how - and so do we, due to VO. He trades the sword to a skeevy dealer for chlorpromazine. Of course, if he sold the sword (for a lot!), he could buy the ... oh, never mind.

Of course, it all goes bad, there's mayhem - it turns out Wahlberg is also a martial arts master - and the police pick him up. In jail, he meets Chiwetel Ejiofor, who seems to know him - or knew him in another life. He gets Walhberg to start remembering too. Then a car slams through the jailhouse wall and Sophie Cookson rescues him. Because Ejiofor is a Bad Guy.

To get Walhberg's memories back, they take him to the Artificer, who turns out to be Jason Manzoukis! Now we're having fun. Zouks has been spending his many lives having fun, doing drugs, building stuff, as you should. He does something extremely dangerous and to his surprise, it works! Now they can go get the MacGuffin, etc. 

Our main problems with this were logic. For ex, the Bad Guys have invented a gun that absorbs your soul so that you won't be reborn. Now, their whole problem was not wanting to be reborn, so problem solved, right? Nope, they are still dedicated to wiping out all life on Earth, for reasons. We also aren't really taken with the more recent Wahlberg productions. As he has gotten older, he has gotten a haggard look, like someone who's gained and lost weight to many times. Like a Kevin Bacon? But not as talented. 

Still, it did have a great role for Manzoukis, and didn't run for more than 1 hour 40 minutes. So it wasn't all bad.