Infinite is a 2021 science fiction action film directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Mark Wahlberg and Chiwetel Ejiofor, based on the 2009 novel The Reincarnationist Papers by D. Eric Maikranz. It was originally planned for an August 2020 release but was postponed due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and was eventually released exclusively on Paramount+ on June 10, 2021. The film was subsequently pulled from the service in June 2023.
Mark Wahlberg plays Evan McCauley, a man who possesses skills and experiences memories of places from a previously unknown life. He is later recruited by a group of immortal warriors calling themselves the "Infinites", as they were from multiple past lives. He soon finds himself in a race against time to stop a rogue Infinite named Bathurst (Ejiofor), who seeks to destroy all human life to put an end to the endless cycle of reincarnation.
Previews: Trailer 1
, Trailer 2.
Infinite provides examples of:
- And I Must Scream: The way Bathurst's reincarnations work result in this. Most Infinites gradually regain their past memories and can be eased into their situation, but not Bathurst. He regains his memories at the moment of conception, and thus has to spend 9 months in the womb, alone, unable to move, speak, or do anything every time. It's no wonder the man is insane.
- Ax-Crazy: The drug dealer in the beginning who is about to chop off his sex partner's arm for simply looking at Evan (who, to be fair, is played by Mark freaking Wahlberg) for too long in his opinion.
- Action Girl: Nora.
- Artistic License – Physics: The motorcycle and the airplane scene. Evan somehow drives a motorcycle onto the wing of a flying airplane and then sticks the sword's blade into the metal wing of the plane and hangs on. Somehow.
- Back to the Womb: Most of the eponymous immortals regain awareness of their past lives during childhood, and usually over the course of several years. However, Bathurst regains full awareness in the womb, all at once, effectively leaving him trapped in solitary confinement for months on end until he's finally born. Needless to say, going through this claustrophobic nightmare every time he dies has left Bathurst more than a little bit unhinged, hence why he's so desperate to end the cycle of reincarnation once and for all - via wiping out all life on Earth.
- Bald of Evil: Bathurst.
- BFG: The gun Bathurst uses in the beginning sequence.
- Big Bad: Bathurst's present self, who seeks to end all life as a means to end reincarnation.
- Big "NO!": Bathurst, when McCauley manages to shut down his Doomsday Device and take the MacGuffin.
- Blessed with Suck: Bathurst's faction have grown sick of reincarnation, and want to end it.
- Born-Again Immortality: This is what Infinites essentially are. Human beings able to perfectly recall their past lives and function as one singular individual across centuries. However, since most don't develop their memories until puberty, they tend to incorporate their new identities outlook and personalities. Bathurst, however, regains his memories at conception, so he's functionally the same person every time he reincarnates.
- Bullying a Dragon: The asshole restaurant owner who invites Evan to an interview just so he can insult him and point out the assaults that came up under his background check. No one in their right mind would insult a guy who has multiple counts of violence in his past, forgetting the fact that he is Mark Wahlberg—a man who is solid muscle from head to toe. Evan has enough sense not to beat the stuffing out of the jerk, but it could've easily have gone the other way.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Bathurst in spades.
- Chewing the Scenery: Chiwetel must have had floss on standby to pick pieces of the set out of his teeth. That being said, he is by far the most committed actor in the film and is clearly trying to be an entertaining villain.
- Church Militant: Bathurst. He is obsessed with dying so he can meet God, but he is also a highly competent and vicious warrior.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Artisan. But he's played by Jason Mantzoukas, so that's no surprise.
- Cranial Plate Ability: It's mentioned that Evan McCauley suffered a mental breakdown due to the jumbled memories of his past lives and attempted suicide via car crash, requiring doctors to install a steel plate in his skull. Late in the film, Bathurst shoots Evan in the head with the Dethroner, an attack that should kill Evan and prevent him from being reborn - but thanks to the steel plate in his skull, the Dethroner bullet doesn't penetrate, and Evan is back on his feet in seconds. For good measure, Evan mocks Bathurst for forgetting about the plate when he was the one who brought up this detail in the first place.
- Cursed with Awesome: The heroic faction of Infinites believe the reincarnation cycle is a gift.
- Dark Action Girl: The blonde who accompanies Bathurst through most of the film.
- Deathless and Debauched: Artisan has chosen to spend his multiple lifetimes on hedonism; quite apart from living in the luxurious back rooms of a casino, being attended to by beautiful women, and reportedly hosting parties, he also has a taste for drugs. After patching up Evan's bullet wound, Artisan proceeds to get high on the leftover morphine while woozily rocking out on a bass guitar - much to Evan's annoyance.
- Designated Girl Fight: Painfully played straight with Nora and Bathurst's stoic blonde partner.
- Did Not Get the Girl: For whatever reason, Nora spends most of the movie acting as if she were attracted to Treadway or had a history with him, but nothing actually develops between them despite her constant No Sense of Personal Space behavior around him and even inviting him into her room when she has no shirt on.
- Disability Immunity: The metal plate in Evan's skull saves his life during the final confrontation with Bathurst; when Bathurst shoots him in the back of the head with the gun he uses to capture the souls of Infinites, the plate takes the force of the bullet while preventing it from actually penetrating Evan's skull.
- Dull Surprise: Mark Wahlberg has a stunning number of these moments throughout the film.
- Evil Is Hammy: Bathurst really likes to ham it up.
- Exposition Dump: These scenes are everywhere. Majority of the dialogue in the film is just exposition about who the Infinites are and how things with immortality and reincarnation work.
- A Fate Worse Than Death: What Bathurst does to the other Infinites. Instead of simply killing them, he has found out a way to basically entrap their souls in a digital landscape that is effectively purgatory, so they can neither die nor be reborn.
- Free-Fall Fight: The final battle eventually becomes this when Bathurst throws the MacGuffin off his plane.
- Guns in Church: Evan is in police custody and sitting in an interrogation room. When Bathurst enters, Evan thinks that the guy is a psychologist or police consultant. Bathurst then starts pulling out various items out of a bag which is strange but Evan is probably used to seeing doctors trying "experimental" approaches on him. Then Bathurst pulls out a loaded revolver and Evan goes into panic. There is no way the police would allow a doctor to bring a loaded gun into an interrogation room. Something is horribly wrong and this is confirmed when Evan yells for help and no police officers respond.
- Heaven Seeker: Bathurst, who wants to kill all life on Earth under the assumption that with all life dead, it will end reincarnation and allow him to meet God in the afterlife.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Bathurst is ultimately defeated by his own gun used to claim the souls of Infinites.
- Hollywood Psych: Evan's "schizophrenia" is...dubiously portrayed, to say the least. "Schizophrenia is characterized by thoughts or experiences that seem out of touch with reality, disorganized speech or behavior, and decreased participation in daily activities." At most, we see Evan having a few moments of memories he can't explain and having the knowledge or abilities he isn't sure why he has, but he doesn't present many of the other symptoms. The closest would be hallucinations, but all of his other cognitive and social functions seem in perfect working order. He also only displays these traits for about 20 minutes of the film and then they magically disappear and he never once worries about the pills he was willing to kill drug dealers to acquire.
- I Know Kung Fu: Evan, once his training is complete and he has most of his memories back.
- Immortality: The basis of the plot.
- It Only Works Once: Bathurst needs to retrieve the Egg from wherever Treadway hid it because making it required various one-of-a-kind strokes of genius and most of the experts who helped Bathurst make it are now dead, so he can't simply track down his plans and rebuild it.
- It's All About Me: Bathurst wants to end all life on Earth just to ensure his own death, rather than trying to find a way to kill himself for good while leaving everyone else alone.
- Jerkass: The asshole restaurant owner who calls Evan in for an interview just to insult and belittle him. The scene is actually just an excuse for exposition, but there is still no reason he was so rude and patronizing to him. The woman beside Ethan is visibly angry and horrified at his behavior.
- Jerkass Has a Point: To be fair, it would massively suck to be reincarnated for all eternity, depending on your outlook on life. While some would find comfort in knowing that, no matter what happens or how many mistakes they would make, they would live again and get another chance to do better. Others would be horrified at having to go through life, suffer, grow old, and die, and then be reborn to do it all over again and again and again, forever.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Partially justified since in one of Evan's former lives, he was a Japanese blacksmith. He does, however, wield it against the drug dealers in the beginning.
- Kick the Dog: For some unexplained reason, the asshole manager in the beginning of the film invites Evan in for an interview, doesn't actually interview him, and then just sits there insulting him and his troubled background. The woman who invited Evan is clearly angry and ashamed of him, so she probably had no idea this would happen.
- MacGuffin: The Egg. It was designed to eliminate all living creatures on Earth. Bathurst assumes that if there is no life on the planet, he cannot ever be reincarnated and will finally get to meet God.
- Mirrored Confrontation Shot: The poster.
- Mistaken for Insane: Part of Evan's backstory. His past lives surfacing resulted in psychotic episodes.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Bathurst wants to kill every living thing on the planet so he doesn't have to reincarnate anymore.
- Plot Hole: Technically speaking, if Evan wanted to end the conflict in his current time period, he could simply kill himself. Bathurst would have absolutely no idea where he would reincarnate or who he would be reincarnated as, and Evan wouldn't retain his past memories for entire decades. It isn't a permanent solution, but it certainly would solve the current problem of Bathurst hunting him to get the Egg back.
- When it's revealed that Treadway hid the Egg inside his own body. They had his corpse the entire time for years and no one ever performed an autopsy nor did a simple X-ray? Also, there is no reason he couldn't have literally told his teammates he stuffed the thing inside himself for safekeeping. It was done just to add a fake mystery to the story.
- Police Are Useless: It's confusing as to why Bathurst is allowed to enter the interrogation room (which for unexplained reasons is soundproofed and also very fancy looking) to harass and endanger Evan. The audience has to assume he's paid off someone or owns the cops in that precinct, but it's never made clear.
- Product Placement: Dear God. It's as bad as a Bayformers movie. Nearly every Cool Car in the film is given a long, loving shot as if a commercial is about to start telling you how much it costs and where to buy it.
- Rated M for Manly: All the cliches are here: almost no emotional scenes and no development of the main character, a ton of cool cars, a hot blonde girl who kicks ass but doesn't actually have much of a character, a maniacal bad guy in a nice suit, explosions, lots of guns, and ridiculous stunts.
- Scary Black Man: Bathurst.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Bathurst is seen in some truly gorgeous suits.
- Shirtless Scene: Unsurprisingly, Evan has two or three of them.
- Soft Water: For once in an action movie, this is averted. Evan dies after jumping off the plane and landing in the ocean.
- Training Montage: Once Evan reaches the safe haven, he immediately agrees to the nonsense he's told and one of these kicks off right away.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Bathurst hates his Born-Again Immortality. His motivation is to end the reincarnation cycle by killing everything on Earth.
