What if one little pill allowed you to access the 80 percent of your brain scientists said humans couldn't access? The ""pill"" makes you the most brilliant version of yourself, where math becomes second nature and foreign languages a breeze. Cue ""Limitless,"" the answer to those very questions.
The movie features a broke and unmotivated writer, Eddie Mora (Bradley Cooper), who has a serious case of writers block. Wandering the streets of New York City one afternoon, Eddie runs into his ex-brother-in-law Vernon, who ends up giving him the miracle drug, ""NZT.""
When Eddie gets back to his apartment, he takes the pill. Soon after, NZT starts to kick in as his landlord's wife berates him for missing his rent payment. Suddenly, camera effects make everything look more luscious—skin looks more vibrant and everything in the room becomes more vivid. Eddie gets a burst of intelligence that was hidden in the deep recesses of his mind, and with little effort spews facts and details, quickly talking his way out of trouble. For the rest of the day Eddie soars through his daily tasks, marking the wonderful beginning of Eddie's drug addiction.
At this point, ""Limitless"" in fact has no limits. Eddie becomes unstoppable, quadrupling his net worth in just four days. But then, the film quickly morphs from an original screenplay into a run-of-the-mill action movie. A stereotypical mafia man who lent him money becomes a problem, stealing Eddie's pill and hunting Eddie down for more throughout the movie. An unknown man Eddie repeatedly sees in the streets also tries to chase him down. As the clichés add up, Eddie is running from everyone. ""Limitless"" quickly resembles a watered down ""Bourne Identity.""
The movie further digresses as Eddie begins to overdose and runs out of NZT. Here, ""Limitless"" spends too much time focusing on the repercussions of missed pills, the withdrawal and the need to take more. The movie drags on as we watch Eddie stumble around and barely survive until he gets his next dose. Between downswings, Eddie gets laid and continuously praised. Surely sex, money and power are not themes we have seen before.
""Limitless"" has two major downfalls. First, Robert De Niro's two-bit part as last-to-know, out-of-the-loop businessman Carl Van Loon may be the most mediocre part of his film career. De Niro always plays a hard-ass, someone who can't be outdone and is always in the know. In ""Limitless,"" he plays the underdog, which makes it hard to buy in to his character.
The second downfall is the writers' failure to hone in on some of the more interesting ideas of the film. It was as if the writers were so excited about all the possible avenues the movie could take that they decided to cover them all but without great detail. By the end of the movie, the plot seemed like something that could have been great, but was so underdeveloped and unfocused it lost its originality.
If you watch movies purely for entertainment, but do not analyze the plot and details, ""Limitless"" may be worth seeing. However, the ending will be sure to disappoint, as there is none.
The only good thing about ""Limitless"" is its unique cinematography. Each time Eddie trips on NZT, the camerawork makes sure the audiences ""trip"" with him. But even as audiences are sent into sensory overload, ""Limitless"" fails to keep their interest peaked. Save your money for a more rounded and fulfilling film.
