Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

kawaterman **A review for those who have already watched the movie**There are a lot of great stories to be told; I often wonder why so many have not been. A swordsman who wins over 100 duels in his life, his first beginning at the age of 13, and by his twenties maintains the handicap of using a wooden blade. Yet the tale of Miyomoto Musashi is one that I have not seen put to film. The world is full of people who tell us what we can not know, yet whether or not they are as wise as they may believe themselves, I have yet to see anyone argue another's ignorance as convincingly or as wittily as Socrates (and with a crucial difference, by first asking what they know, and actually listening to how they think they know it) -- or for as noble a purpose. So when I found that a movie had been made about one of my heroes, I was very eager to see what it amounted to.I assume that either Matthew Broderick or his mother (or both) who wrote the screen play, must also have been a fan of Feynman. I wouldn't suppose to know everything about Feynman, but I have made an effort to learn everything that I could. I have read his books, looked through his Wikipedia and looked at just about everything I could track down that had anything to do with him.For me, as a physics student, the appeal of Feynman is mistranslated in the movie. He of course, was no ordinary genius, but how he accomplished what he did was as important (to the "niche" audience) as what he did, and the how seemed to be missing. Feynman developed his capacity for mental math during the Manhattan project via competition with Hans Bethe, and the development is key. The abacus scene was terrible for several reasons, some of them outlined in other reviews, chiefly for misrepresenting Feynman's personality. However the scene also sold out the accessibility of intelligence as something unique to certain individuals, that this was something 'natural' to Feynman. Feynman's IQ was measured at 125, which is supposed to be 15 points below the average PhD. Now, I'm not going to argue about the validity of IQ testing, one of the major personality traits the film wasn't able to touch on was of Feynman's insistence that people were incapable of measuring the aptitude of others' with tests. This "low" score however, was what is truly inspiring about Richard Feynman, that he never claimed to be more than a normal man. All his ability came from work driven by passion and love. Feynman wasn't a Japanese 4 year old who could speak 5 languages and solve Rubick's cubes blindfolded in 7 seconds. He was a lover of life and of learning, and it was his passion that motivated him to work hard, and his love that drove him to never give up and believe he could accomplish anything anyone else could. The real lesson of Feynman is that anyone can reach for greatness, and with drive and effort and luck attain it too. The Feynman story is one that allows us all to believe in ourselves, not one that should make us feel intimidated or insignificant. When Feynman can beat the abacus man at 18 with no background story of how his abilities came to be, it is far less inspiring.The performances were satisfying, but the story development seemed rushed, especially in the beginning. There was plenty of room for drama in the competition for Arlene with Feynman's old "friend" Howard without the need to throw in so many anecdotes that disrupt his life's true time line. I think that if you go through the books Feynman wrote only once, you miss how truly stressed Arlene's diminishing health made him. He was in many ways a subtle man, and private. When Feynman writes, I feel like he blindsides his readers from ever detecting how much he was hiding from them, with the sheer vulnerability he subjects himself to with his honesty. You can't see what hes not saying because he has already surprised you with the courage to say so much more than most people will admit to. To know how he was really feeling I think requires reading between the lines. When Feynman sees the dress, it is a total breakdown, it is overwhelming. In everything Feynman ever wrote, that was the only time he ever confessed "it was too much." I can hardly think of the scene depicted in his books without coming to tears, even now. The story of he and Arlene really is, as another reviewer put it, one of the greatest real love stories I have ever heard of.I don't know much about movies, and I understand there are limitations. You can't fit everything into 90 minutes and "the book is always better." I would be curious to hear Mr. Broderick explain why he went the way he did with certain aspects of the film. I certainly couldn't comment on whether writing, acting, and directing simultaneously would have been too much. If the film gets anyone to go and look up Richard Feynman, I think it will have served its purpose.

tmehle A caution: this review reveals details of the movie.The movie "Infinity", stars Matthew Broderick who portrays the Nobel-prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. Broderick also co-produced and directed the movie. Keeping it in the family, the screenplay was written by Matthew's mother, Patricia Broderick. The other major role, that of Feynman's first wife Arline Greenbaum, was played by Patricia Arquette.Infinity is not a documentary about a phase in the life of Feynman the scientist, my expectation. My first impression as the movie unfolded was disappointment. I have been intrigued by Feynman the physicist and scientist since I purchased his Quantum Mechanics lectures trilogy in 1968. As the movie progressed, I saw that it isn't a movie about science; it is a movie about the heart. The point of this movie is to portray Feynman the person, and his relationship to the love of his life, Arline Greenbaum; in this it succeeds wonderfully.A few years back, while reading one of Feynman's books, I ran across a passage which made a big impression. Feynman wrote that his children, who were raised in private schools and visited home only during holidays, were known well enough to him that if he were to meet one on the street, he would probably recognize that person as his child. That statement helped convince me to move from academia to the business world, making becoming a better father and husband my top priority. After seeing this movie, I better understand Feynman the person. The tragic loss of his first wife probably produced a life-long desire to hold personal relationships at a distance, and to make research and teaching his top priorities.Broderick does an impressive job of directing the film. Just one example: at the moment of the death of his wife, my expectation was for there to be intrusive weepy violins. Instead, the moment moved through silence, making a more powerful statement. That scene reminded me of George Burns pulling down his shoe box of old photos from the top shelf of his closet, and looking at them quietly in "Going in Style", a scene which packed an emotional punch without resorting to violins.There is another dimension to the two Brodericks' intelligence which surprised me: they did not botch the physics, what little there was. Nearly every Hollywood movie which has an opportunity to do so, gets the science wrong... having space ships produce impressive sounds as they move through the vacuum of space, for example. Matthew Braderick as Feynman explains beta decay to his wife using olives from his lunch in an approach worthy of the real Feynman. Also, Feyman's father explanation of inertia, in which he differentiated between being able to name it and describe it, which he could do, and understanding the "why" of it, which no one could do, was a "deep" understanding of science which Broderick portrayed with sympathy and understanding. By staying away from complex mathematics and the physics that could have been incorporated into this story, to the delight of the geeks of the world, Broderick created a movie that is accessible to all."Infinity" is a gem of a small movie, a love story, a true story, told with gentleness and feeling; a movie which does not overreach itself. I strongly recommend it.

tedg Spoilers herein.Some theorists live in the world of their theories. If you are going to pay attention to people, these are the most worthwhile. And certainly if you are going to build a film around them, you have some pretty rich possibilities. That's because the best films - in my opinion - take you to an alternative world, and the world of these theorists is often wonderful indeed. Nash was one of these thinkers who lived in the world he created, which is why `Beautiful Mind' was such a disappointment. Feynmen was a different sort of beast altogether. For him, the world was real, and he lived in it. He was among the best at forming elegant models and describing them to others, but it was all from the solid foundation of him in the real world. So a film about him in an artificial film world is not possible, which is why Broderick's approach is so apt. The problem is that if you focus on him as a person, he is a pretty ordinary person.I suppose that's what the Brodericks wanted, a `small film' that they could manage. It is done well enough, especially the agent in disguise as an Indian. There's nothing wrong. It is just too slight. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.

Clive-Silas This was a very worthy project of the Brodericks, mother and son, and one which I would have liked to have tackled myself, having read and greatly enjoyed both "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?". To concentrate on the deep love story between Feynman and his first wife Arline, which coincided with his work on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, was, I feel, a good filmic move in order to give the story an anchor (not to mention the fact that it truly is one of the most romantic real love stories I've ever heard of). Every movie adaptation has to make sacrifices, and this one obviously had to sacrifice all the other interesting stuff that happened to Feynman in the years after the war. So I don't have a problem with the quality of the script, and they also had a big enough budget to get the period feel.However, this film falls down in a major way on the characterisation of its lead character. Surprisingly, for Broderick is not a bad actor, he just comes across as being Broderick - a good looking young man who can look lovingly at Patricia Arquette and add a bit of passion to his voice when explaining complicated physics. But we've all seen the real Feynman on television and in film - he was LARGER than life! He was intensely charismatic, a brilliant expositor of scientific ideas and a great teacher.It seems to me that instead of succumbing to the temptation of directing, that Broderick should really have got someone else direct, so that he could concentrate on really getting inside the head of Feynman and reproducing on screen some of that charisma - something I'm quite sure Broderick is capable of doing.So ultimately this is a missed opportunity. You learn some of the facts about what happened, but you don't really meet the real Richard P. Feynman.