Writer: Tuen Li Chen

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Watch this if you liked: “Jumper”, “The A-Team”

The classic, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" tells a story of a gentleman who drinks a potion to transform to a murderous, ugly Mr. Hyde and a case of split personality. "Limitless" spun the classic by giving us a piece of eye candy in the form of 'Eddie Morra' (Bradley Cooper), unpublished writer to successful financial-trader.

Based on a novel by Alan Glynn, Eddie was introduced to the drug, NZT, that will utilise full capacity of anyone's brain. With one little pill, he finished his book in 4 days with his publisher loving every single bit of it. He was hooked to the endless possibilities in front of him. Math becomes easy, learning a second or a fifth language could be done while taking a morning jog and impressing his long-time girlfriend, Lindy (Abbie Cornish) enough for her to stay with him in the relationship. However things start to get complicated when he realised he was being watched while juggling his new whiz-kid status with his boss, Carl van Loon (Robert De Niro).

A risk the directors took was to inject the dark witty humour which can be often lost on mainstream audience. They did a great job by making jokes about seemingly difficult matters and Bradley Cooper's performance sold the audience the story line of a man amazed by himself but still grounded in life. The cinematography work also made a run-of-the-mill story about a man getting hooked on drugs visually interesting.

Unfortunately, signing up to watch a suspense movie means one wants to have... well, suspense. The plot veered off after the pivotal moment where 'Eddie Morra' stands alone on a bridge in Downtown Manhattan wondering where did the last 18 hours of his life go. Conflicts were resolved immediately or soon thereafter and what could have been an interesting twist of Robert De Niro's character was only introduced a few scenes shy of the credits.

Overall, it is one of those films which would be a fun ride if one is watching it for its humorous action scenes or just for a plain afternoon getaway... from whatever they need escape from.

Cinema Online, 04 April 2011