Review: Limitless

An intriguing idea, non-stop story and striking visuals make Limitless not just entertaining but also smarter than your average thriller.

Based on Alan Glynn’s novel The Dark Fields, Neil Burger’s Limitless sees struggling writer Eddie Mora (Bradley Cooper) stumble upon a wonder-drug that essentially kicks your brain into overdrive. Allowing him to access 100% of his brain power, Mora can now recall every moment of his life perfectly and learn at an incredibly fast rate. He powers through his book, which had previously plagued him for months, in just four days. However, seeing as the movie opens on Mora about to jump off the ledge of his penthouse suite with threats shouted from beyond his door, you can bet it isn’t all smooth sailing.

It’s an intriguing premise that really gets you interested. All the back story of Mora struggling through life is pretty standard. Trouble working, loses girlfriend, it’s not really important, but also isn’t too long or drawn out, just enough necessary so we know where this guy is going to rise from. Mora has a chance meeting with his ex-brother-in-law who gives him the drug NZT-48, and from the moment he takes it, the movie has you. Distorted camera angles, heightened sounds and slow motion all disorientate you while the drug takes hold of Mora, the movie itself even shifting from a lowly blue tint to vibrant and clear colours. You really get a feel of how big the change this drug has on those who take it, including a pretty intense zooming shot seemingly covering half of New York in about thirty seconds. When NZT-48 eventually starts to mess with Mora’s head, boy do you see and feel it yourself.

The cast is decent. Well, Bradley Cooper is decent, as well he should be given it is his story, but his girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) and even powerful businessman Carl van Loon (Robert De Niro) aren’t anything special. Cooper plays the failed writer well enough, but he shines as the rising-star broker, along with providing voice-over for much of the film which avoids the pitfall of too much being damaging and not enough being pointless. But this movie isn’t really about big performances or underlying plots, it’s the ‘What If?’ premise that drives it and the movie never loses sight of why you came to watch in the first place; the drug.

There are few moments where I thought I had tuned in to watch the ‘Bradley Cooper Gets All The Tail Show’ and we get a pretty clichéd montage of him living the high life and driving fast cars after becoming successful, but otherwise you’re thoroughly engaged. Just as we know how bad Mora’s life is he, gets the drug. Just as he gets successful, he finds new enemies and just as everything is fine his brain starts to melt down. Even when the film enters the, let’s face it, pretty boring world of business, the tempo is up and you’re never left wanting something to happen.

So then, where does this movie sit? I see it as a mix of Black Swan and Taken. Yes, I know, but bear with me. Everything that shows a new feature of the drug is great. How you see, how you think, how you act, it’s all here and presented in a visually great movie when NZT-48 shows its more extreme effects. I won’t even mention how desperate Mora gets for his fix later on in the movie, but the whole audience were with me in a mixture of shock and disgust. Outside of that, everything is neat and tidy. No, we don’t get anything stellar from an acting perspective, but do you really want that? Limitless is a movie you take your friends out to see knowing almost nothing about except the premise and you get a two-hour roller-coaster ride and an entertaining story to boot.