Limitless

A watchable film with entertaining formal tricks, but the script has a lot of problems. I was very annoyed by the main character behaving like an asshole all the time (and even more with the smart pill). Of course that made up drug can work in any way the creators see fit, so it’s pointless to look for any logic in its effect, but it still prevented me from fully enjoying the film. And either I didn’t understand its meaning, or the ending is utterly stupid. (21/05/2011)

Say yes to drugs? Limitless is a decently made, but ordinary, sometimes very stupidly naive fairy tale with a blatantly messed up ending (I really don't think one needs any special finesse to hit another person in the head with a TV, or to put a dish brush in his mouth). But the film thankfully has a likable Bradley Cooper, and Robert De Niro, although he doesn't have much to do this time and is in the film mainly to be in it. They say the book is better. I'd like to believe it, but I don't want to read it. God knows who wrote it and under what influence. (20/08/2011)

“I know you’re not stupid, but don’t make the classic smart person’s mistake of thinking no one’s smarter than you.” You’ll go to see Limitless as an inconspicuous, dime-a-dozen March thriller that couldn’t afford a bigger star than Bradley Cooper, and you will get a fresh chill-out movie with good dialogue and an innovative script and visual ideas (Google Streetview guys have a lot to improve) and above all a great Cooper, who is able to single-handedly act as the driving force behind a thrilling feature film. Moreover, if you find yourself having a soft spot for a young version of Nicole Kidman named Abbie Cornish, this is a perfect movie for you. (23/03/2011)

Limitless grows more stupid as the screenwriter runs out of pills. The idea on which the film is based is used skilfully at first and Burger succeeds in filling the holes in the logic (and in the chosen form of the narrative) with a boatload of optical effects. As the minutes pile up, the very simple initial situation begins to show signs of wearing thin until the people behind the camera seriously have no idea what else they can squeeze out of it (in the climax, they basically take a blind shot in the dark), at which point the film ends. The underused potential of the central premise is revealed by the cautious stab at politics just before the closing credits roll. If the plot had unfolded in this direction from the beginning, without the cheap subplot involving an Eastern European taxidermist desperately passed off as the main plot, Neil could have given us a nicely biting satire for our hour and forty minutes instead of another toothless thriller. 60% (26/03/2013)

A smart and nicely psychedelic film with skilled cinematography and several excellent dialogue scenes, a few visual effects, and some high-quality finesse. It loses a bit of breath by the end, and I felt throughout that although the main character has an impressive vocabulary, he is extremely unlikeable, whether he is a loser or a superstar. De Niro is a Maybach is fine, in one of his typical roles, otherwise the topic is rather non-standard and attractive, with good ideas, but feels unfinished. (23/07/2011)