37 Thoughts I Had While Watching Mark Wahlberg in Infinite
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I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I hate action movies. Give me rom-coms, or give me TV! That said, the newly released sci-fi film Infinite—in which none other than Marky Mark Wahlberg plays a man tasked with using his memories of past lives to save humanity—looks so wildly bad, it kind of fills me with joy. Maybe I’m wrong, though (it’s been known to happen, on occasion). Let’s dive in and find out, shall we?
First off, I literally had to make a Paramount+ account to watch this movie, and I will be canceling the trial in exactly one hour and 46 minutes.
I keep thinking the movie is starting, and it’s just yet another production-company logo. When did they get so complex?
Okay, the voice-over is telling us that “there are, among us, a people gifted with a perfect memory of all their past lives. They call themselves Infinites.” It’s giving me The Giver, baby. Pay Lois Lowry her money!
Apparently, there’s infighting between the Infinites; some think of this memory talent as a gift, and others, as a curse. Intrigue!
Some guy is driving fast, pursued by cops. ACAB, but slow down, guy.
What is this, The Fast and the Furious? (One of the few action franchises I’m familiar with, because a boy once made me watch one.)
A long, romantic scene plays out in which two people are literally upside-down in a totaled car. Wouldn’t they have...injuries?
We cut abruptly to Marky Mark in a fancy suit, answering questions about his “past” at an interview to work in an equally fancy restaurant. It turns out he attacked a customer at a previous job, because the guy harassed a waitress. He was also previously institutionalized, and the guy interviewing him is super mean to him about it.
Marky Mark doesn’t get the job, but he’s too badass for it, anyway. We learn he’s running out of his meds, which sounds bad.
Marky Mark’s passion in life is...forging swords? To finance his medication? Okay.
A face-tatted drug dealer bro tries to get fresh with a sword, so obviously Marky Mark has to violently stop him, hero that he is.
Oh, God, Marky Mark literally severed some guy’s fingers. This never happened in Julie and Julia!
Chiwetel Ejiofor, dressed in (you guessed it) a fancy suit, interviews Marky Mark in a police station, recounting large chunks of Marky Mark’s life to him. What is his accent? It’s sort of Russian-inflected, but also not quite? I have so many questions.
Chiwetel has Marky Mark deep in all sorts of painful and violent flashbacks, and at the risk of being a scold, I would love to interject here that schizophrenia is a real disease with real treatment options, not merely an aggro action-movie plot device.
If there was any kind of transition here, I missed it: Suddenly, Chiwetel and Marky Mark are in a car with a female Infinite, squaring off with a bevy of NYPD officers.
How do action-movie heroines always have perfect, windswept hair in chase scenes? If I tried to drive while evading police capture, anxiety sweat would transform my mane into a rat’s nest instantly.
Lots of footage of cars flipping. Yawn.
Marky Mark is convinced nothing that’s happening onscreen is real, and that he’s having a psychotic break, but Female Infinite tells him it’s “destiny.” Okay!
Female Infinite tells Marky Mark he’s...a reincarnated Russian blacksmith. I’m so confused, guys.
Now we’re in an...ancient Latin-speaking torture chamber?
Now we’re on a plane with Marky Mark and Female Infinite, and she’s explaining that Infinites like them are split into “Nihilists” and “Believers.” She’s a Believer, and she thinks Marky Mark is too. Her hair remains perfect.
Perfect Hair, a.k.a. Female Infinite, takes Marky Mark to a giant and gorgeous water-set former scientific center that the Believers now use as a headquarters. We see the Believers practicing fighting, with an instructor telling them, “You must be prepared for everything.” Apparently, Chiwetel is “the apex predator in our world.”
Next we’re introduced to “The Egg,” which is a giant and terrifying device “designed to kill every living thing on earth.” I think we’re supposed to connect this to WMDs, but...unfortunately, I can’t stop laughing at the name “The Egg.”
Chiwetel is torturing all kinds of people in his effort to find Marky Mark. I hate it.
Training sequence time! Perfect Hair et al. start getting Marky Mark in fighting shape, as well as trying to retrain his neural pathways, for...reasons.
Everybody in this movie is vaguely Russian, for some reason.
We take a lot of Magic School Bus-y trips through Marky Mark’s memories, and I’m not going to lie...it’s boring, if visually kind of cool.
Man, Chiwetel is really giving it his all, but he sounds like the Count from Sesame Street.
OMG, Jason Mantzoukas. My guy! Fun and unrelated fact: My friends and I once tried to send him an artichoke appetizer at Little Dom’s in Los Angeles, and our server refused to do it on the grounds that it was “weird.” (She was right.)
More memory-tour time.
Even more memory-tour time.
Finally, Marky Mark is released from his sensory memory bath, sweaty and ready to fight.
War time! Everybody is running, shooting, and hiding, occasionally in a random forest.
Marky Mark and Perfect Hair fully have their long-awaited romantic moment, mid-battle. Hey, to each their own.
The final fight scene involves Marky Mark and Chiwetel going at it in the air, and I can barely see the screen because I am laughing so hard. I get the sense it’s a dramatic moment, though.
I guess Marky Mark...wins the fight?
Well, that was a ride. If this recap made no sense to you, I welcome you to try to discern the plot by actually watching the movie, but let me tell you, it’s no easy feat.
Originally Appeared on Vogue
