In
the future, teleportation is possible as a form of data-transmission. “Slipstreaming”
is sort of like faxing yourself across the solar system. Unfortunately, data
corruption can be a nasty side effect. Maybe that happened to the “t” and the “y”
that ought to be in the title. Regardless, a galactic rescue team will risk
data corruption and an airborne psychosis-inducing pathogen in Shane Abbess’s Infini (trailer here), which opens
today in the Tri-State Area.
Of
course, the future is miserable, because it always is. To support his pregnant
wife, Whit Carmichael joins the slipstreaming SWAT team, but his first day will
be a doozy. While he is still suiting up, an entire squad returns infected with
a crazy bug, shooting up his regional command center. His only means of escape
is slipstreaming to the far distant Infini mining colony from which they came.
The East Coast team is subsequently dispatched to Infini with orders to secure Carmichael
as well as the ominous cargo payload someone or something heaved in the
direction of Earth.
Although
only a few minutes have elapsed on Earth, several weeks have already passed for
Carmichael. You know, relativity and all. The good news is if Carmichael lives,
his wife will hardly know he was gone. The bad news is the utterly baffling in
media res prologue suggests he is in for some major trouble.
Somehow,
Infini’s narrative manages to be both
simple and incomprehensible at the same time. On the other hand, it looks
terrific. Although shot on a shoestring budget, production designer George
Liddle (whose credits include Dark City and
Daybreakers) and art director Peter “Babylon”
Owens (whose nickname inspires confidence in a genre film) have crafted a fully
realized and convincing looking interstellar environment.
Australian
reality TV star Daniel MacPherson is shockingly effective as Carmichael, the
frazzled everyman. Harry Pavlidis also adds some grizzled gravitas as Menzies,
a senior extraction team member. Strangely though, Grace Huang, a future action
star poised to breakout big (following notable work in RZA’s Man with the Iron Fists franchise and
the short film Bloodtraffick) isn’t given
much to do in Infini, except milling
about in the cold. She is not the only one just waiting for “it” to get her.
