One would expect a man using his brain's full potential to also utilize some creative imagination.
Not the case with last week's sci-fi thriller "Limitless" starring Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish and Robert DeNiro. The "what-if" story of a man who takes an intelligence-enhancing pill has some unexpected and fun visual effects but lacks in logic.
Cooper plays a barely recognizable bum writer Eddie Morra, recently dumped by his got-it-together girlfriend Lindy (played by Cornish: Stop Loss, Candy, the upcoming Sucker Punch). After a chance encounter with a shady acquaintance, he decides to take a pill, NZT, that allows him to "use the full 100 percent of his brain".
Cool premise. Except a screenwriter should have found through basic research that human beings do indeed already use all of our brain's potential-not just the twenty percent as commonly misconceived. Still, a minor detail that bothers only the annoyingly analytical like myself.
In fact, it's these minor flaws and inconsistencies that weigh the movie down, to be saved only by select acting and the film's cinematography.
Most notable for acting is Cooper, who proves that he can hold his own as a leading man. The fact that his first lead role wasn't a RomCom surprised me, given the post-Hangover hype about his good looks. That being said, Morra is a character you'll enjoy from lazy greaseball to paranoid prick (which as we learn, is the most significant side effect of NZT).
While Cornish was not bad, her gold-digging character (let's be honest) is easily overshadowed by the naturally smart, quick-tongued and slow-moving Carl Van Loon (DeNiro), a legendary and demanding figure in the global finance elite. No one can deliver the banter like DeNiro can, and his commanding performance provides a veteran force in the would-be newbie film.
The film is based upon the 2001 novel The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn, and whether it holds true to the tale or strays from the sci-fi's core, I cannot say (having not read the book). I will say this however: the art directors did an amazing job of making the film look like a book. And by that I mean it resembles the world I'd have imagined in my mind while reading. Completely realistic, with an occasional moment of pure imagination. Pictured here is such a scene:Eddie writing with the letters that just seem to rain down around him from the rafters of his apartment.
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