Infinite (2021)
Click to viewThis is one of several films that were supposed to be theatrically released in 2020, but for obvious reasons, was not. It's now streaming on Paramount+, and since I've got a discount for that channel for a bit, why not? It's (probably loosely) based on the book The Reincarnationist Papers by D. Eric Maikranz. Apparently Chris Evans was set to star, but (un)fortunately that didn't work out.
Of all things, I actually heard an ad for this one on the radio while I was on the way to a doctor's appointment. I generally like stuff dealing with immortals and the like (hello, Highlander, my first real fandom), and this is a bit of a twist on the idea. Instead of the body being immortal, it's the memories in this universe, a form of reincarnation in which about 500 people calling themselves The Infinite have perfect recall of their multiple past lives. In the (original) Highlander mythos, the fight among immortals was over The Prize, with the fear being if someone evil won The Game, it would be the literal end of the world. There's a similar concept here, as some of the Infinite have split into two camps: The Believers who view their reincarnations as a gift to help humanity, and the Nihilists who literally want to end the world so they will stop being reincarnated.
We start in 1985, as Heinrich Treadway (Dylan O'Brien, who is the main reason I decided to watch this) is on the run from the cops and the bad guy. There's an elaborate car chase as Treadway talks to his fellow members of The Infinite, Abel and Leona, telling Abel to remember to "look inside" if he doesn't survive. He does an even more elaborate crash on a bridge to land on a crane, but Abel and Leona are killed by an unknown person. At first I wasn't sure when this was taking place, but now I have questions about how they appeared to be talking via earpieces in 1985. Just... roll with it, okay?
We pick up in 2020 as Evan McCauley (Mark Wahlberg) wakes up from a dream about all this, so of course we know he's the next incarnation of Treadway. He doesn't know this, as he's been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was institutionalized for a while. He can't get a job, and he needs meds, so he unknowingly uses his past life knowledge to forge a sword in a manner that hasn't been used since the Edo Period in Japan (1603 - 1867) to trade with a drug dealer. I'm like... just go sell these and make a fortune, you don't need that job you interviewed for, but... roll with it. Drug deal goes bad, he gets arrested, and he meets Bathurst (Chiwetel Ejiofor, who I barely recognized in this), another Infinite who is in the Nihilist camp wanting to end the world and came close until Treadway stole something from him back in 1985.
McCauley gets rescued by some of the Believers, who practically worship him because they believe him to be the reincarnation of Treadway who's going to save the day again, even though he still doesn't have clear memories of his past lives. Which brings up another consistency thing... when do they settle on their names? There's a reference to Heinrich being a popular name in "the 50s" clarified to mean 1750, so the man who died in 1985 wasn't born with the name, so when does a name "stick" for people who are reincarnated? Just roll... you know what? Nevermind. I give up trying to make sense of this. DOB is pretty and the action sequences look good.
The plot is all over the place, but one little twist is that among other things, Bathurst has created a special type of bullet that can stop an Infinite from reincarnating. Supposed to "trap their souls" and he's been collecting for a while now, but if he's so hellbent on stopping being reincarnated, here's the DIY method to take himself out of the equation, but that's never mentioned because it would be a much shorter film.
The latter half of the film is mostly action sequences, and a few are flashback scenes in which we get to see Dylan O'Brien doing some fight scenes, including using a katana. Um... hey Hollywood, you keep talking about a Highlander reboot? Here's your guy! I read a review somewhere saying they wish this film had switch iterations of Treadstone, so we'd see the Walberg version in the flashbacks, so it's not just my crush on DOB seeing that would have been better. Wahlberg is rather flat in this, and even in his short scenes, DOB grabbed my attention before I even realized it was him.
tl;dr: Worth it if you have Paramount+ already, otherwise, just go watch DOB in the opening car chase. Wish I could find the katana fight clip without ads for upcoming videos covering up most of it, but this will do.