Just like The Lincoln Lawyer mainly wants to show you a good time over exploring the moral dilemma at its surface, so too Limitless is consumed with slickness over substance. The plot—a man takes a pill to make himself smarter—is the type of high concept quasi-thriller Hollywood loves to make because it’s easy to sell to a general audience (unlike say, two professors meet for lunch to talk about love, death, and humanity). It lets them pretend they’re watching something really interesting, even though it’s clear from the jump the movie has no real interest in exploring its actual plot. Limitless barely lets its lead character have a scene showing off his new found smartness—there’s a great one early on that shows how the drug works and how the character uses it to seduce his landlord’s wife—before plunging him into a typical thriller involving financial tycoons, hired goons, and Russian mobsters.
It feels a little—forgive me—LIMITED for a movie that should have more on its mind.
What Works: That one scene I mentioned is a keeper. The movie isn’t bad, just unambitious and pedestrian for a movie that’s lead character could go, literally, anywhere.
What Doesn’t Work: Bradley Cooper isn’t entirely convincing as an overnight genius. His blue eyes light up like lasers and he goes through the motions of getting smarter but he’s just a little too frat house smug to really come off as brilliant. A street hustler sure, but a guy with a “four digit IQ”? No.
What I Would Have Done Differently: At this point it’s clear I would have made a different movie with less conventional thriller tropes and more ambition. It’s an exciting premise that could have gone literally anywhere but except for a handful of scenes, the movie feels stubbornly tied to a mass market plot that’s less than genius.