Unfocused and 2D Characters with Some Decent Parts

Rating: 5/10 (18 March 2011)

Limitless seems to be limited on conveying its purpose to the audience. The film wanders around unsure of where to go, but ends up being nothing special. It certainly had potential with its concept but ends up being a typical rise and fall movie of a drug addict where he sort of rises again at the end. The film is mostly a watered down version of the film Pi with some drug thrown in so it wouldn't cross the line of plagiarism. I really don't know why De Niro was cast in this film as his role could have been played by virtually any other decent actor. Yeah I said it. De Niro barely adds anything to this movie. Obviously, the only reason De Niro was in this was to increase the film's revenue.
There really isn't much to say about the plot except that it's basically what you would except and nothing extremely surprising happens. I admit I was consistently paying attention throughout the movie and wasn't ever truly bored. However, this film is just so... bland. The only point of it seems to make a few bucks. Not to mention, the characters also seem rather indistinct and 2D with no notable performances. Very little development. The film's pacing is also quite slow. Despite having a rather typical running length it seems to go 1.5x as much as it actually is. They also throw in some random balding guy who just tries to kill Eddie and his girlfriend just so you wouldn't fall off from the edge of your seat from falling asleep. There's really nothing memorable about this movie with the exception of the somewhat intense confrontation scene towards the end, with those stereotypical Russian guys. However, there's one flaw with that scene. You WOULD THINK with such an extremely expensive security system there would be an alarm of any sort but nope. Even with NZT, he forgot to check if it came with an alarm. Writers of this movie: take some NZT or at least proofread your scripts.
There are some questionable visual effects that seem to be there just for the sake of having them. Initially, I thought the drug's effect was seeing in a sepia tone and a wide angle lens. But seriously, was it really necessary to add random words that appear around the room as he is typing? Also, there's this godawful zoom in that appears a few times in the movie gave me a headache. I guess they're trying to be creative but it doesn't really work. Maybe I'm being too nitpicky on the effects, but theses ones are borderline artsy-fartsy or wankery without any taste. The soundtrack is also nothing noteworthy. From what I've heard, it just seems like your typical electronic music that will fit the mood but is just there for the sake of it.
If you have nothing to do on a Friday night and you feel like you must see a movie just for the sake of seeing a movie, then by all means go see this one. Otherwise, I think my time is better spent watching De Niro in his prime instead of him just jumping into any film he can. Click "not helpful" on my review all you want, in a year or two the IMDb rating for this movie will plummet. The people who genuinely think this movie has a purpose besides mindless entertainment to it should pop some NZT in their mouth to be able to see why it isn't that good.