Review: Infini


Mining operations in the future involve teleporting/slipstreaming between planets. It’s not a safe gig, as deaths can occur, and there are checks on re-entry to make sure you don’t bring anything contagious back home. Expectant father Whit Carmichael (Dan MacPherson) is one such teleporter embarking on his latest mission. However, things don’t go well, and Carmichael finds himself stranded on the alien planet. Another team (played by the likes of Luke Ford, Grace Huang, Dwaine Stevenson, Luke Hemsworth, and Kevin Copeland) is sent to Infini to stop an impending threat to Earth, with the search and rescue of Carmichael a secondary concern.

 

Imperfect but not-bad 2015 sci-fi ‘mind fuck’ flick from Aussie writer-director Shane Abbess is at least preferable to another dreary film about Western Sydney heroin addicts or dinky-di soldiers and jolly jumbucks. It’s also a giant leap forward from Abbess’ previous dreary, cheapo sci-fi/fantasy “Gabriel”. Unfortunately, it’s another Aussie film stupidly trying to pass itself off as American, though the Aussie cast do a reasonable job with the Yank accents. The phony-sounding technical jargon was much harder to stomach for me, to be honest. It’s a well-shot film (the lighting is particularly nice) by DOP Carl Robertson, but the modest budget shows with cheesy sound/visual FX throughout (Good music score by co-story writer Brian Cacchia, though). Thankfully there’s not much in the way of visual FX on show anyway, but what little there is…isn’t good.

 

Daniel MacPherson (best known here as a former soap actor and former “Dancing With the Stars” host) is typically rock-solid playing the oh-so Australian-sounding Whit Carmichael (sigh), but I wish the very talented Luke Ford were given a lot more to say and do. He’s a very versatile actor (just look at his work in the amazing “The Black Balloon” and then…everything else he has done) far better than the role he has been afforded here. He’s by far the best actor in the film, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see Luke Hemsworth (Seriously, they’re breeding like rabbits!) become something in the future. There’s plenty of influences on show here, you’ll spot similarities to “Interstellar”, “Freejack”, “Aliens”, and “Pitch Black”, and I must admit I did wish the film were just a tad more original than it is. It’s not fatal, but it does work against the film somewhat.

 

If you like your sci-fi with a heavy dose of the trippy and psychological, you’ll like this a lot more than I did. I think it needed a bigger budget and a lot more Luke Ford, but I will always encourage Aussie filmmakers to make more genre films, and there’s been much worse than this one.

 

Rating: C+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good). Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town” ) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the
Read more

Review: Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear

Scott Adkins is once again Casey, an American proponent of the martial art of Ninjutsu. When Casey’s pregnant Japanese wife (Mika Hijii) is rubbed out, he’s on a vengeance mission to find her killers. A friendly face, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi) turns up at the funeral, and suggests Casey come to Thailand to deal with his grief in another country. Casey initially declines, but eventually takes Nakabara up on his offer. However, his wife’s murder still haunts Casey, and with intel supplied by Nakabara, the trail eventually leads Casey to a brutal drug baron named Goro (Shun Sugata).   I was extremely disappointed with the first “Ninja” , but had heard that this 2013 sequel from director Isaac Florentine ( “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , “Undisputed III: Redemption” , “Ninja” ) was a damn near masterpiece of the martial-arts action movie genre. Having now finally gotten my hot little hands on it, I’d say the hype is a bit much, but this is unquestionably a much better film than the f
Read more