Too far-fetched

Rating: Null/10 (7 April 2011)

This would have been a better movie had there been some restraint on the movie makers' part from stretching it beyond the credibility limit. A loser accidentally coming across a pill that makes him a winner is interesting premise. I don't even mind that the movie is in a bit of an identity muddle, never quite certain whether it's sci-fi, fantasy, black humour, corporate warfare or gory crime thriller. Even "all of the above" may not be that bad so long as it is entertaining, and it is. But the movie is also a blatant insult to the audience's intelligence.
The assertion that an experimental pill (identified as "NZT") can bring to the forefront the 80% in the human brain's untapped potential is on safe ground. Even its ability to transform the protagonist (Bradley Cooper) into a financial wiz and lightning-speed author is quite acceptable. But it looks absolutely ridiculous when you see that by mentally recalling in a split second how Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali, he can beat up half a dozen thugs on a subway platform. Equally ridiculous is another scene when his girlfriend (Abbie Cornish), cornered by a deadly murderer, swallows one of these pills and in thirty seconds comes up with a clever way of not only escaping but also hurting the attacker. To be fair, these scenes are entertaining but the audience will have to go along with the moviemaker's assumption that they are unbelievably dumb.
Can there be anything worse? Yes, the movie makers aren't done yet – the have self-contradiction. In the mandatory final climax, having the benefit of the pill (the omnipotent power of which the movie makers have shamelessly stressed throughout the movie) does not seem to help the villain who fails to be alert to a simple risk of a counterattack by the protagonist, who has NOT taken the pill. This brings then premise of the entire movie tumbling down like a deck of falling cards.
As I said, the movie is entertaining. Bradley Cooper, after years of ho-hum career in things like TV series "Alias" and part of a movie ensemble cast such as "New York, I love you" and "Valentine's Day", finally gets a showcase for himself here. His friend and mentor Robert De Niro even gave him a hand by appearing in a more-than-cameo role, nevertheless still a much underused role as a business guru trying to enlist the protagonist service. Also much underused is Abbie Cornish who in the concurrent movie "Sucker punch" has been fighting like there is no daylight and doing little otherwise in terms of acting. The good news is that she looks ravishing in "Limitless". The bad news is that she isn't doing anything more than in "Sucker punch" in the acting department. To see how good she can be, one has to see "Bright star" (2009).