Infini

Infini_360P

good

Moon and Ex Machina are two films that have shown what can be achieved with a great idea and a low budget. Infini has a low budget and a low rent screenplay which is incomprehensible and it shows. Too much of the film reminds you of Event Horizon, Aliens, The Thing but those films were better and had a bigger budget. Whit (Daniel MacPherson) leaves his loving wife behind to go on a dangerous and well paid teleport mission in a galactic outpost where a search and rescue mission goes wrong. The planet is made of some kind of alien biological material which infects its human inhabitants and they later display a violent blood lust. This primordial ooze could be heading for earth and wipe out the entire planet. The film is murky and dark. It might be set in the 23rd century but their are a lot of F bombs dropped by the cast who also resort to increasing violence in the second half of the film. Uninteresting and uninspired.

Set in the future where travelling extremely long distances is made possible by converting people into a different matter and streaming like data, a military outfit is given the task of saving a man and also preventing a foreign substance from reaching Earth. When the military unit reaches the incredibly distant and isolated outpost they are thrust into a desperate fight against a contagion/parasite/alien (they don't know). The movie was very light on story and character development while being heavy on violence and psychedelic trips. Eventually we find out what the movie is all about, but the question is: do we care? I found myself in the position of not caring a heck-of-a-lot about any of the characters. I didn't know any of them and they all seemed threatening so, as far as I was concerned, they could've all perished. The main character, Whitt Carmichael (Daniel Macphearson), did have a pregnant wife at home which was sporadically mentioned so as to build an appeal for his character; but it seemed so distant and random. I know that the point of showing the pregnant wife was to garner sympathy and/or give the main character some depth but it wasn't done in a natural organic way. It was very formulaic and almost academic, like: "hey the main character has a pregnant wife at home so you should feel for him." I didn't like the movie. Lots of things were left unexplained and we were thrust into a situation so suddenly that it was hard to figure out who was who and what was what. Before I knew it I'm looking at stark raving lunatics going at each others throats.

It will be too unsettling to follow a sci-fiction film that keeps throwing questions but answers too few of them. Though it might qualify a remiss to either never try so hard to understand, or to abandon the task of not missing anything, it may be understable to have a such leanings, especially when almost everything is blurred by utter lack of sense or comprehensible argument in the narrative. This fatal flaw may be present in the new Australian sci-fiction horror, INFINI, but it knows too well which part of its entirety to highlight, for it to overcome its headachingly baffling set up. In the future, a mysterious airborne contagion is sweeping through an entire space command center. To escape, newbie Whit Carmichael (Daniel McPherson), spacejumps to Infini--a mining station infamous for being the site of one of the greatest space disasters, and the very same place where the viral strain has originated. A rescue team, tasked to both rescue survivors and repel a potential cataclysmic threat to the Earth, from the East Command arrives. This ensures an unnerving hide-and-seek drama that would place the entire team, and Whit, in a game of survival. INFINI's plot adheres a common backbone, and it will not be hard to figure out how it is inspired by the past outings belonging to the genre. The mere attempt is bold, but at most parts, it fails to deliver compelling results. Evidently, the movie's biggest flaw is the narrative itself, which is often intricately convoluted and unfocused. Lack of clarity keeps it's motives suppressed, if not barely relayed. Truth is, INFINI's plot, doesn't take a very long time to gather attention. It has strong arguments to compel audience, but the delivery itself is too bleak and bland to reach its targets. Too seldom too, these arguments are often supported with answers that whatever it aims to portend, only loses sense in the end. The idea of time jump, which, on this case, is called "slipstreaming", is a controversial subject, and here, is already interesting enough to pull attention. Yet, this wouldn't be enough for INFINI to maintain its hold over curious audience. The key, really, is the ability of the film to keep the action alive by making the "unseen enemy" an ever-imminent threat. This is where the curiosity mostly comes and the film utilizes this capacity up to the very end to maintain its level of suspense. In the end, it will be really hard to assess INFINI by its storytelling alone, nor it will be easy to give a verdict solely based on the level of intensity and suspense it presented. But judging both, this one's a 6/10.

"All animals are under stringent selection pressure to be as stupid as they can get away with." - Robert Boyd Shane Abbess directs "Infini". The plot? In the 23rd century, humanity has developed "slipstream" technology capable of teleporting human beings hundreds of light-years away. This technology is used to send a search and rescue team to an off-world mining colony. Their objective? Rescue Whit Carmichael (Daniel MacPherson), the lone survivor of what seems to be a biological attack. During its second half, "Infini" informs us that humans on the mining station have been killed by an alien species. A genuinely fascinating creature – similar to Octavia Butler's Oankali - this alien observes and infects all living organisms encountered. The alien then selects from its prey what it deems to be "alpha traits"; traits deemed to be beneficial for survival. The alien then reconfigures itself via genetic self-regulation, such that it now possesses or absorbs these selected traits. By constantly absorbing "alpha traits", by constantly adapting, growing and morphing, the creature remains at the bleeding edge of (self-directed) biological evolution. What Shane Abbess seems interested in, however, is the traits his alien becomes preoccupied with. After confronting human beings, the alien begins "drawing out" emotions of rage and hate, thereby causing its prey to go violently insane. The alien also begins creating facsimiles of humans which exhibit heightened aggression, fury and madness. Filled with loving memories of his wife, Whit Carmichael is able to resist the alien's attempts to tease out these baser instincts. Whit does this repeatedly throughout the picture, using sheer willpower to keep his emotions in check. Like the alien, Whit thus seems able to actively control his own biology. His mind triumphing over matter, Whit then challenges the alien to choose "better" genetic/emotional traits to adopt. The alien obliges, chooses altruism over aggression, and ceases to be a violent parasite. It henceforth starts creating "helpful" and "benevolent" human facsimiles. Whether the alien has genuinely mellowed, learnt a valuable philosophical lesson, or whether it is adopting a benign facade for the purpose of covert infiltration, is left ambiguous. "Infini's" alien may be interesting, but Abbess' convoluted plot does it little justice. "Slipstreaming" turns out to be totally unnecessary for the tale Abbess ultimately intends to tell, and the film features a wholly unnecessary subplot in which our heroes terminate a shipment of explosive material bound for earth. A better writer would have jettisoned all this erroneous material and got down to film's point. Elsewhere the film's derivative of "Event Horizon", "The Thing", "Pandorum" and the "Alien" franchise. Luke Hemsworth co-stars. 6/10 – Worth one viewing.

Review: This film was awful. I didn't have the patience to try and understand all of the technical jargon and the terrible acting just made matters worse. I'm not going to try and explain what the film is about because I honestly don't know. All I know is that there is a group of search and rescue specialist  on a ship, in the future, that go nuts and start killing each other. Don't ask me why! All through the chaos on the spaceship there is one person that doesn't seem phased by some virus. I think! Don't ask me what virus because I honestly haven't got a clue. It's blatantly obvious why there isn't any stars in this movie because the script is awful. Right from the beginning when I saw the technical rubbish in paragraphs, I knew that this film wasn't going to make any sense to me. After falling asleep through most of the film, I got woken up by loads of screaming and more technical jargon, with one man wandering around a ship so the film had obviously not moved on that much. I tried to watch it from the middle again but that was a bad mistake. I really hate it when directors over complicate movies to try and give them meaning, even when the film is total rubbish. Movies like Alien are very straight forward, which is why people around the world can watch them time and time again. With Alien, there is a alien on a ship trying to kill everyone so they have to fight to survive. BASIC! You have the option to try and understand the technical aspect of the movie but that doesn't take away the intensity and action. In this movie it's just confusing right from the beginning and the fact that they are fighting against a non-visual object, except from them funny looking silver people near the end, just makes this a total waste of time. Crap! Round-Up: The main character in this movie, Australian born Daniel MacPherson, 35, hasn't really starred in any big movies but he has starred in many episodes of the Bill and Neighbours. If he's expecting this film to push him into the big time, he's very much mistaken because I really can't see anyone being that impressed with it. On the plus side, he's acting isn't that bad and he does bring some intensity to the film but the whole concept and confusing storyline made this movie a flop. It was directed by Shane Abbess who also directed Gabriel in 2007, which is unheard of. He has 6 movies upcoming in the future but if there anything like this one, I doubt that they will be heard of either. Anyway, I'm not going to go on about how bad the movie is anymore because I might upset people out there that actually enjoyed it but I will honestly say that I won't be watching it again, ever. I recommend this movie to people who are into their horror/sci-fi/thrillers about a group of search and rescue specialist who set out of a rescue mission and end up going nuts on a ship, for some unknown reason. 1/10

And a whole bunch of other movies like"the thing"and even longer ago"invasion of the body snatchers". The ooze reminded me of "ghostbusters 2"and you can probably make a very long list from which the director/writer borrowed from. The whole"I'm gonna be father so I have to get home"added useless drama and made it very predictable. I liked some of the nasty visuals but most of that is shown after the action so we never get to see that. I felt the ending was cheap like the writer himself did not know what else to do with it and just say let the perfect organism win and be done with it. Some of the characters were decent but most of them highly underwritten so they're just starting to act crazy and get killed. Maybe if your very bored or haven't seen to much other movies it might entertain you. But for me its something totally forgettable. Infinite. Repeat.

'Infini' the independent Australian film made on low budget with most, maybe all of its actors doing their roles for free is an entertaining chunk of screen that has no shortages of head f@cks. The film takes on the familiar style of Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus'. A group of scientists or in this case soldiers jump both feet in to the challenge that comes before them only to find themselves neck deep in grueling and unforgiving mess. This film requires you to invest. I found myself in its opening scenes being battered by unoriginal script writing and low grade acting that filled me with dis-contempt. However if you persist, are open minded and know how to watch films for what they are and not what you expect them to be. 'Infini' will hopefully, like it did me, leave you wanting more and more. Only after stumbling upon a trailer of this film, post its date of release as listed on its IMDb page did I even know this film existed. Its under budgeted so that means under marketed. This film has room to evolve and expand but with such little funding, its hard to see these ideals becoming reality. If you can keep an open mind and enjoy films for what they are then give 'Infini' your undivided attention. Its at times hard to follow, confronting and different. However keeping in mind its little budget, 'Infini' once its final scenes had finished, imprinted in my mind. I will be recommending this to others in time to come while I keep my eyes peeled for any word of what to is come of this sci-fi flick and the team that helped bring it to life.

This movie is hilarious...for it's intentionality. One can hear the exact tone, the exact signature of the approaching terminator in the soundtrack, the misplaced and disconnected Rutger Haur's brilliant guttural musing as he decides to save Decker, Kurt Russell's bemoaning buzz in the existential thick of it all, Ripley's emotionality as she realizes the Alien is locked in the escape pod with her, the creepy insanity of Event Horizon, and others, many others. This is a movie totally devoid of passion, soul and consistency. A B movie trying desperately to masquerade as an A movie, and the results are truly pathetic. Even Doom with the r(c)ock was far, far better, as was Supernova, as was Sunshine, as was... And as for Pandorum? Looks like a masterpiece compared to this piece of ungodly trash. I was trying to decide whether to rent The Gunman with Sean Penn or this one. The Gunman got way worse reviews on Rotten, IMDb, etc. And yet, how could it have been worse than this one? This is like "The Ghosts of Mars" on some kind of psych med that really mellows you out and makes you not care about anything or anyone, not now, not ever. It is numbness and emptiness and existential abandon all rolled into one celluloid nightmare of banality, commonplace and artistic ruin like a rotten sushi roll. Do you have values? Do you have integrity? Do you have a soul? I so, stay far, far away from this one.