Infinite, or The Villain Problem
After work today I watched a mediocre Mark Wahlberg action flick called Infinite. It was released in 2021, and stars, as I said, Mark Wahlberg and Chiwetel Ejiofor on opposite sides of a philosophical (and real) war between two factions of people who remember their past lives. As an action movie, it's just fine. Nothing special going on. Wahlberg is more hit than miss usually with his acting, and this one is definitely a miss; stiff, unemotional, with the worst voice-over read I think I've ever heard. Ejiofor is talented, but not quite enough to get around the not-great material he was given. The action is fine but un-innovative. What I think really makes it mediocre though, is the fact that it has this really interesting concept of opposing and unreconcilable philosophical ideas related to reincarnation, and the film doesn't seem to want to really engage with it. A lot of similar action movies are like that.
Quick-ish breakdown, if you haven't seen it (and you probably haven't): There are people who, when they reincarnate, can remember their past lives. Among these people, there are those, called Believers (so creative) who are the good'uns. They believe (ha) that their ability gives them a responsibility to leave the world a better place than they found it. The other side of the war are the Nihilists (again, so creative) who want to end everything, not just for those who reincarnate, but for everyone. And both sides are fighting over a McGuffin called "The Egg" that will destroy all life when activated. Wahlberg is the special one who has the location of "The Egg" hidden in his lost memories, and Ejiofor is the baddie who wants to end everything. There's back and forth, the good guys are dumb, the bad guys are ahead of the game, there's some hint of magical shenanigans, and then the good guys win in the end because of course they do.
Now, here's the thing I was most interested in. There's a throw-away line from the bad guy1 where he basically reveals that while everyone else gets their memories back when they're teenagers, he gets his memories back while still in the womb, and he hates the never-ending cycle that he feels trapped in and tortured by. If you're not paying attention then the moment goes right over your head, because the other characters do not react to this horrific revelation at all, and it's never mentioned again. The hero doesn't sit with it in a quite scene after the fact, pondering what kind of life that would be and whether this might be a way to reach the villain in order to turn him from his villainous ways. There's no mention of having attempted to help the villain before, no talk of trying to reason with him before this major escalation. There's just "me good guy, he bad guy".
True, the movie is very clear that Ejiofor's character is some kind of fanatic. At one point in the movie he has one of his people purposefully waterboard him while he chants something to the effect of "God must show me his face", which is very fanatical. So the possibility of him listening to reason or even considering an alternative to his big end-the-world plan is next to zero. He even has a method of trapping souls digitally so they can't reincarnate, and does not use it on himself to end his suffering. So yeah, he's a crazy one.
BUT the fact that the good guys don't ever consider the fact that his reincarnation is torturous and that perhaps they could find a way to help him, is a failure, in my opinion. Not just of the characters, but of the movie. There is so much interesting philosophy there, it would have elevated the movie to a great action flick if it had had the guts to go more than surface deep with the concept.
The other things about the movie that got me thinking was the fact that there were so many faceless lackeys doing the bad guy's bidding. Almost an army of them, all in black, literally with their faces covered so they can't be humanized as the good guys tear through them with bullets and swords. Who were they? What were their names? Did they have families? Why were they helping the bad guy? Did they know that the bad guy planned on ending all life on Earth? If they did know and believed in the cause, why?
While the movie as a whole was forgettable (I hadn't even remembered I had it on my shelf before I looked), the concept is so interesting and rich that I am tempted to write a novel about it so I can dig deep and pull out all the good, thought-provoking philosophy waiting to be engaged with. Add that to my pile of never-ending projects :)
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Look at that, I'm talking about a villain being the most interesting character again.↩