New Fennecritic review of: Limitless !
Jaspian the Fennecritic Presents...
The Fennec Film Review of:
Limitless
The story of an uninspired “loser” who stumbles across an unreleased miracle drug that turns him into a winner, at the cost of having to take it for the rest of his life or risk the deadly withdrawal symptoms, Limitless is like many of the movies we’ve seen before. However... it isn’t. I know I usually add a bit of pre-review fluff, talking about the trailers and opening-day anticipation of a film, but I’m going to keep that to a minimum tonight because honestly there isn’t much to say. I saw the trailer. I liked the trailer. I like Robert De Niro. I resolved to see the movie, even if I wasn’t “wowed” by it too much. Marked my calendar. Then I forgot about it until checking my weekend plans and going “Oh... Limitless opens this weekend” and so I went and saw it.
The film Limitless was very good. Acting was good, pacing was good, soundtrack was awesome, dialog was good, story was good... really the only problems that I had with it were technicalities. The drug, for example, supposedly excites the brain, allowing the user to access 100% of their brain rather than the “normal 20%”. While I recognize that... yes - this is fiction... and they are simply trying to justify some science behind a loser-to-winner drug, the simple fact is that, unless a person is brain damaged, they use 100% of their brain. It is a fallacy that people only use a portion (its commonly said 10%). This was due to a misquote from a popular neuro-scientist, who said that humans only use 10% of their brain’s capacity AT ANY GIVEN TIME. For example, when you’re learning, your imagination, creativity, and memory centers are less active, and other centers, such as those that control sleep states, are entirely inactive (at least one would hope). So the basis for the drug is flawed. Secondly, there’s one scene where the main character, needing his fix, drinks the blood of a dead man who has the drug in his system, and it works. This is obviously totally unrealistic... he’d have to drink a shitload of blood to get a dose. But other than these two minor things, I really can’t find anything wrong with this movie.
Best of all was the direction. There were many creative and interesting camera angles and effects, and the overall flow and harmony of the way that the film progressed was masterful. It was very similar to the David Fincher “Fight Club” style, heavy narration over interesting camera shots, zooming through New York City in the intro, similar to zooming out along the barrel of a gun in Fight Club, and the “starting in the middle” followed by a flashback to start the story, then catching up, passing, and proceeding to the end... it took a lot of cues from Fight Club, but was never cheap or awkward using them.
In the end, I give Limitless two-ears-perked and a hesitant omnomination for the 2011 Fennec’s Choice Awards. I say “hesitant” because... as good as it was, it didn’t blow me away. It was no Scott Pilgrim or Inglourious Basterds, but it was still fantastic, and I definitely recommend seeing it. While there are no “big” scenes, some of the zooming effects I’d say are best appreciated on a large screen, and so I would recommend seeing this one in theaters. If you’re not that excited about it, then DVD is good too. As much fun as some of the camera shots are, they aren’t vital to the overall composition, which is very solid through-and-through.
Thanks for reading!
-Jaspi