REVIEW: Limitless

MOVIE
Limitless

CAST
Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish

RATING
PG-13

RELEASE
March 18, 2011

DIRECTOR
Neil Burger

STUDIO
Relativity Media (Universal)

RUNNING TIME
1 hour 45 minutes





GRADE
B (57)








STARS
**1/2












REVIEW:

Is Bradley Cooper, the better looking guy from The Hangover mainstream star material? I guess that Limitless, the star's latest movie is supposed to prove this. I can see him being a big star, but I believe that his talent, along with the rest of the cast was wasted in this movie. Limitless, an smart and creative idea, can be described in three subject matters: drug use throughout, hardcore and gory violence, and mainstream sex used frequently throughout the first half. I expected much more out of this movie, due to the strong supporting cast, including the great Robert DeNiro. I'm not saying it was an awful movie, but I expected much more out of this movie, with a great sounding story and cool looking trailer. I bet many people enjoyed this movie, I'm just one of the few who didn't care for it.

Eddie Morra just got dumped by his longtime girlfriend. To make matters worse, his book is due in a few days and he hasn't written one word of it. But the chance encounter of his ex brother-in-law gets him access to NZT, a new pill designed to enhance your IQ and figure things out easier. And the best part is that the drug is FDA approved. But with a drug this powerful, it shouldn't hold any consequences to it, right? WRONG! Now a whole mafia-esque group is on his tail to get the drug and access the information inside Eddie's head. So how far will Eddie go to be Limitless?

There were many flaws featured in this movie. The first of the flaws was the hardcore violence. I mean this was crazy disgusting violence that was unnecessary for a PG-13 movie. The images displayed in this movie were even more disturbing than in movies like True Grit. In fact, right after the movie, I asked my accompanist how this incredibly brutal movie got the PG-13 stamp, yet something like The King's Speech gets the R stamp for language. This proves once again that the MPAA is a bunch of dummies when it comes to rating things such. This is a very iffy choice for teens, since they may be scarred by seeing these graphic images. Well, most teens have seen The Hangover, so you never know. Not only the violence, but sexual content and drug content is shown throughout the movie as well. The moment Bradley Cooper starts taking the drug, he immediately gets into a violence filled, sex involved, and drug-addicting situation. And I believe that that was one of the many huge flaws about this movie.

It wasn't just the story that dwindled down throughout the hour and 45 minute running time, the acting did the exact same thing. Bradley Cooper's character seemed interesting at the beginning, but after about an hour with him, I lost interest in the character and didn't really care about what's going to happen to him next. Abbie Cornish, Bradley Cooper's love in this movie lost my interest about a half an hour after we first met her. The other main player, Robert DeNiro never even had my interest. This suprised me because Mr. DeNiro is such a great actor, with his only bad movie being when he got "focked" up for the third time in a row. He was just incredibly boring to me, and had no reason of being there in the first place.

Overall, I was disappinted in Limitless. The movie had so much going for it, but fell flat in a sea of gore and drugs that could never be recovered from. The acting was poor, especially since these are very talented characters. The story fell flat when trying to be really cool. It was pretty much on a one note streak throughout. But I did like the premise of the movie and did want to find out how everything turns out for the characters. But unfortunately for me, I didn't like Limitless. Some people may like it, yet some people like me may not like it. If you really want to see this movie, DVD is the best solution. There's no purpose of catching this on the big screen. After seeing this movie, I didn't feel Limitless, I just wished that I waited until DVD to see this.



PREVIEWS YOU MAY SEE:

Arthur


Hanna


Apollo 18


Fast Five


Thor


X Men: First Class