Recensioni de* critic*

A third-rate “Inception” meets “Transcendence” guzzled by adrenaline junkie X-Game daredevils who fixed jumper cables to their can of RC Cola mixed with pop rocks or whatever... [It] it mostly feels like a crass excuse to stitch one excessive action set piece to the next. “Infinite” also just feels insultingly anonymous, as it was wheeled out of the I.P, “potential franchise” factory, shiny, slick, and new, but utterly soulless, unoriginal, and uninspired.

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... found the source code to the genre and 3-D printed it without any of the primal thrills that make such blockbusters watchable.

The script doesn’t reincarnate so much as it recycles, drawing freely on the nested realities of “Inception,” the free-your-mind metaphysics of “The Matrix” and the amnesiac-assassin revelations of the Jason Bourne movies. Maybe watch one of those tonight instead. “Infinite” may last a finite 106 minutes, but transmigration of souls or no transmigration of souls, life is too short.

["Infinite"] flattens a high-stakes battle of good and evil into airless action of little consequence peopled by characters that amount to even less, with so much info-dumping crowding the script that the dialogue starts to sound like the desperate gurglings of a clogged toilet after awhile.

That’s the thing about "Infinite" — it doesn’t just waste the potential of its premise; it’s actively square in its thinking about everything, up to and including matching up its two main women to fight.

Juxtaposing that entertainment value with his own serious narration can be frustrating, but you get used to it upon realizing the contrast is less bug than feature of the whole. Director Antoine Fuqua and company want the best of both tonal worlds here and end up sacrificing their individual success as a result. "Infinite" is not as smart as it thinks and never as fun as it deserves.

Lifelessly directed by Antoine Fuqua, Infinite’s only sense of artistic inspiration seems to come from continually aping The Matrix... If only the film had borrowed even a fraction of Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s dime-store philosophizing as well, maybe it would be on to something halfway compelling. On the other hand, they could be saving that for the sequel.

The film doesn’t begin to know what to do with the reincarnation idea beyond a few sharply edited micro-flashbacks. Is the look on Wahlberg’s face the character thinking What is going on? Or is it the actor thinking Am I in the next ‘Matrix’ or the silliest movie of 2021?

It’s a bit of The Matrix, a bit of Inception and a bit of Mission: Impossible, but mostly a lot of anonymous guff with everyone involved going through the motions for a pay cheque, making it hard for us to go through it with them, no similar monetary reward waiting at the end of line.

The product falls far short of the lofty works from which it draws. Rather than crafting a high-concept science-fiction marvel, Fuqua’s “Infinite” relies on shoddy VFX and ropey world-building for the worst film of his career. (Yes, worse than “King Arthur.” Yes, worse than “Brooklyn’s Finest.”)

The more you nitpick this movie, the more innumerable its plot holes appear, until the whole thing collapses in on itself.

What Infinite fatally lacks is personality. It’s all sci-fi table setting all the time, racing through introductions and plot points at a mercenary pace, its wheel manned by a star whose default mode for this kind of movie is hunky frowning.