You’d think the combination of Oscar-nominees Mark Wahlberg and Chiwetel Ejiofor teaming up with The Equalizer and Training Day director Antoine Fuqua – would be a recipe for success.
Well not necessarily. In fact, this sci-fi actioner is a below-par, overly-complex, genre fare – which is basically a ‘hodge-podge’ of bits and pieces from similar movies that have done it better.
This Matrix-esque wannabe sees Wahlberg’s schizophrenic Evan McCauley discovering that his hallucinations are actually visions from past lives he’s lived via reincarnation.
He then gets roped into a war between rival ‘Infinite’ (a rare special breed of human that can reincarnate like McCauley) factions known as the ‘Believers’ (good guys) – where he's taken under the wing of Sophie Cookson’s (Kingsman: The Secret Service) agent Nora Brightman – and the ‘Nihilists’ (bad guys) – led by Ejiofor’s (12 Years a Slave) villainous Bathurst.
Unfortunately, the Nihilists think this existence is a ‘curse’ which leads to them trailing McCauley (who was kick-ass operative Heinrich Treadway in his previous life) whose memories should lead them to the whereabouts of the fabled ‘Egg’ – a device that attacks the DNA of all living things and destroys life.
But sadly, the entire cast look like they’re just here for the ‘pay day’, and predominantly Wahlberg, who’s been firing out an almost limitless supply of movies in recent years – and sadly he’s starting to lose credibility with the calibre of his over-flowing CV.
This is definitely towards the lower-end of his catalogue, as this type of film – despite one or two glossy set-pieces and a ‘smattering’ of intriguing ideas – has been done infinitely better many, many times before.
ESP Rating: 2/5
Gavin Miller
Platform: Amazon Prime
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sophie Cookson, Dylan O’brien, Jason Mantzoukas, Johannes Haukur Johannesson, Rupert Friend, Liz Carr, Kae Alexander & Toby Jones
Running Time: 1 Hr 46 Mins
Director: Antoine Fuqua