Limitless- Grade: B

Starring: Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, Wedding Crashers), Abbie Cornish (Stop Loss, Bright Star), Robert DeNiro (everything)
Directed By: Neil Burger (The Illusionist)
Release Date: March 18, 2011
Opening Weekend: $18,907,302
Rating: PG- 13
Run Time: 1 Hour 45 Min
Synopsis: Man is failing in life. Man gets hold of super secret brain drug. Man is able to use 100% of his brain. Man is super humanly smart and becomes very rich and powerful. Other very rich and powerful people begin to notice and try to use man. Man starts to feel the negative side effects of the drug. Man's life starts falling apart.



So How Was It?: What hooks you in is the insanely interesting concept of super human intelligence and what a life of limitless success would be like; a life where you could literally do anything you put your mind to. Layer that with really cool special effects, fast cars, beaches, good looking people and a surprisingly relatable, undriven protagonist (Eddie Morra) and you've got yourself one very fun (and often funny) movie.
Fun can't last forever though, and sadly, Limitless loses a bit of its innovative spark towards the end. The ending feels out of synch with the rest of the film, especially with character development. We spend so much time with Eddie in the first three quarters of the film. We root for him. We get to know him. We feel what he feels. We see what he sees (literally). And then it all stops and bam, we're thrown a year into the future and expect to believe that he has changed as much as he has, with no real explanation for his actions (not to mention his bizarrely horrible haircut). Then the screen goes blank and we're left wondering, wait...what?







Acting Wise: Bradley Cooper shines the brightest, proving he's worthy of carrying his own film. He's in his element, flowing seamlessly and believably between being the disheveled, failed writer and the movie star-esque, confident businessman. Abby Cornish's character feels a bit flat but her acting is decent, especially in one memorable chase scene. Robert DeNiro is well, Robert DeNiro. The trademark smirk, squint and intimidating glare are all there and work well for his undeveloped business mogul character, Carl Van Loon.


Technically: Visually, this one's a stunner. The film makes good use of a few interesting zooming techniques, most notably in the credit sequence (I found myself feeling a bit nauseous during them). There are also a few memorable scenes where some special effects come in handy, like letters falling from the sky and ceiling tiles rotating to reveal stock numbers. The numerous fish eye camera distortions and changes in saturation are valuable and necessary, helping the audience feel the literal shift in vision the characters feel when they're on the drug.


Best Scene: DeNiro's "you haven't earned this yet" speech. Classic DeNiro.


The Shallow Editorial End: Everyone's thinking it so I'm just going to say it: Bradley Cooper is a handsome man. Most people would even say, very. As great as it was to see him looking like a homeless writer, I think everyone breathed a little sigh of relief when he went back to his infamous Hangover Phil Wenneck look: custom made suits and slicked back hair. Added bonus: we get to hear Bradley speak in French, Italian and Chinese. Also, perhaps the color saturation was upped a notch but Bradley's blue eyes are abnormally piercing. Kudos to Abbie Cornish's eye makeup team: her eyes were equally as stunning.



To See or Not to See?: See It. Even with the lackluster ending, the film's premise is an interesting enough one to warrant the hour and 45 minutes of your time. If anything, at least you can get some great discussion points out of the film's moral dilemma: what would you do if you had the power to accomplish anything you put your mind to?









WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE ENDING.
For Those Who Have Seen It: How are we expected to believe that Eddie miraculously "worked out" all the kinks in the drug (something that even in the fake sci-fi Limitless world would have taken longer than that) and is now completely off it yet somehow is able to keep on having super hero brain powers? And nothing bad happened at all? And he still gets the girl? Also, how disgusting was the blood drinking scene? (although it did successfully convey how desperate Eddie was...)