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Limitless (2011)

Limitless

There are about four or five friends of mine refer me to this film. I don’t know, I don’t like its package. For me it looks like another uninteresting sci-fi film. But at last I made a chance to watch this movie, and I tried to put out all of my preceding feeling about this movie, and I started to watch. Then, how was it going?

Excitingly plain, that’s probably the word. Contradictive, eh? Well, let me tell you the plot first. It’s all about Eddie Morra (played by the 2011 "People" magazine's hottest-man-alive, Bradley Cooper), a dumped-by-his-wife, messed-up writer, who eventually got a chance to live in a totally different way, after his ex brother-in-law gave him a pill. This pill, named NZT, could maximize the power of  his brain so that he became so much smarter and brilliant. Then, he met a businessman named Carl Van Loon (played by Robert De Niro) who employed him. With Van Loon and the power he got from NZT, he rebuilt his life, collected money, and gained popularity. Problems wait when he realized that his NZTs were running out and many unexpected enemies hunted for the NZTs he got.

The story was so attractive. For some moments, especially on how the incredible power of NZT was described, I was like saying to myself, “it’s just a movie, it’s a work of fiction, it’s not real, it’s just a movie...,” repeatedly. Well, this NZT is the most attracting part of the whole plot. It’s always about the awesomeness of NZT: it makes us viewers feel so ... envy, doesn’t it? It’s because, to be honest, NZT is the only thing I found attractive. The rest of the plot was ... meh.

"I was blind, but now I see" -- Eddie Morra

While the concept of this NZT thing tried to unlimitedly expand the main character’s life, the life itself got so much narrower. The more the plot tried to tell me the limitless effect of NZT, the more I see flaws in the plot. For example, I don’t see any significant differences between the normal Morra and the “enhanced” Morra (after consuming the pill). I don’t know if it’s only because of the unsurprising acting by Bradley Cooper or the plot itself characterized him so. I was expecting that Morra could do something more outstanding when he’s under the stance of the pill, like come up with a better idea about how he could deal with (or even anticipate) his problems or so. I just didn’t see it.

Well, I do admit that I’m thrilled with the plot. But, again, these flaws kept me asking myself throughout the duration and they are too disturbing. Moreover, don’t expect too much from the acting department: they were unexpectedly unsurprising. Maybe the only eye-catching point from the cast is Bradley Cooper, although his performance was dull. I don’t see any necessities for putting Robert De Niro as a mastermind businessman, because his showtime was in a minimum part of the duration. Eventhough he played good, the plot went so shallow that he didn’t come up with his best performance. So many voice-over Morra did were helpful and the non-linear narrative plot was not so spectacular, but at least it increases the effort of the plot to be a more showoff-y. Some bit part of extreme zoom-in camera effects were intriguingly aesthetic, though.

Limitless

I’ve already said that I have cleaned up my mind from any negative feelings before I started watching “Limitless”, but finally, the film itself suck these feelings again into my mind. Yes, I was pleased, thrilled, and fascinated: I even tried so hard not to believe that in the future, somewhere in the world, there’ll be such thing like NZT (LOL :D). But, at last I have to tell you that it’s definitely made for being enjoyed, not for being appreciated. Don’t take this film too seriously, you'll find out so much flaws. You just need to sit down, relax, and be dazzled by what "Limitless" will serve. That's it.

 ACCEPTABLE 



DETAILS & CREDITS

LIMITLESS | COUNTRY USA YEAR 2011 RATING Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving a drug, violence including disturbing images, sexuality and language GENRE Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller RUNTIME 105 min CAST Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro, Andrew Howard, Anna Friel WRITER Leslie Dixon (screenplay), Alan Glynn (novel) DIRECTOR Neil Burger BUDGET/GROSS $27,000,000 (est.) / $79,249,455 (USA per 7 Jul 2011) AWARDS Nominated for Best Science Fiction Film Saturn Award 2012, another 4 nominations IMDB RATING 7.3/10 METACRITIC 59/100 (Mixed or Average Reviews) TOMATOMETER 69% MORE INFO

Akbar Saputra

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