I'm a sucker for Sam Rockwell. When you add in Christopher Walken and Woody Harrelson, you have just created a film that I will watch, regardless of the story. So why try to get around it? Check out the red band trailer for Seven Psychopaths:
Judging from the trailer, Seven Psychopaths is writer/director Martin McDonagh's attempt to make a fast-paced heist movie, along the lines of Snatch, but in English and with better dialogue. McDonagh's first film (he is also a playwright) was the surprisingly enjoyable In Bruges; at first glance, it looks like he was trying to keep the humor, but up the pace with his follow-up. And there is nothing wrong with that approach --- I bet McDonagh could make one hell of a great breakneck crime flick. But that's not what he's going for with Seven Psychopaths, although it takes a little while for that to become clear to the audience.
Although there are hints that things will get weird
Marty (Colin Farrell) is a successful screenwriter suffering from writer's block. The script he is working on is titled "Seven Psychopaths," but he's having trouble actually coming up with any characters. That's where Billy (Sam Rockwell) comes in. Billy is Marty's best friend, but he's not a particularly good influence. Instead of working, Billy and Hans (Christopher Walken) kidnap dogs and then collect reward money when the owners post flyers around the neighborhood. Billy is trying to help Marty finish his script, although nothing seems to be working. That's why Billy puts an ad in the paper for psychopaths to contact Marty to tell him their stories.
...which ultimately leads to Tom Waits carrying a bunny during a firefight
Meanwhile, it seems that Billy and Hans have made a mistake in their choice of dognappings. Instead of a spoiled trophy wife's pet, they picked up a shih tzu belonging to a violent mob boss (Woody Harrelson).
That would be pretty bad, but they could theoretically give the dog back on the sly and hopefully avoid any violent repercussions. Well, they could if Billy was a rational human being. By holding on to the dog, the mob boss is able to identify the dognappers and send his underlings out to kill them. Unless there happens to be some other psychopath on the loose, killing killers (and there is!). So what do we wind up with? A homicidal criminal out for revenge, a random killer on the loose, a confused and mostly drunk writer, an idiotic dognapper, and Christopher Walken. And that is when the story takes an unusual turn, a metafictional turn that is better experienced than explained.
This is what you expect, but you get something slightly different
The acting in Seven Psychopaths is some of the better comedic work I have seen in a while. As the mostly normal point-of-view character, Colin Farrell does a great job being surprised and helpless; he is mainly reacting to the other actors here, but he's refined the acting capabilities of his eyebrows as he's gotten older. Sam Rockwell, as usual, was a bizarre delight. Rockwell plays goofy exceedingly well, but he is exceptional when given a good script. Christopher Walken was unmistakably Christopher Walken. Some might argue that he's leaning into self-parody territory these days, but I love seeing him in good movies --- especially ones where his weirdness doesn't stand out more than anybody else's.
If I walked into my home and found Christopher Walken, I would expect him to look like this
Woody Harrelson clearly benefited from a script full of amusingly foul things to say. Harrelson is a good actor, but he's at his best when playing up his comedy roots, and he does absurd comedy as well as anybody in mainstream Hollywood.
"Somebody cast me in a Coen Brothers movie! A comedy, this time!"
The rest of the cast has what amounts to featured cameos. Some of them, like Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko and Harry Dean Stanton, don't get to do much, although their parts move the plot forward. Others, like Michael Pitt, Gabourey Sidibe and Kevin Corrigan, receive little screen time but compensate by having chunks of pretty great dialogue. Even the actors playing straight roles, like Zeljko Ivanek, turn in quality character work. Of all the supporting cast, Tom Waits has the meatiest and strangest role, although it is easily the least bizarre movie role I have seen of his. It's always a pleasant surprise when you watch a movie and see only good acting in it, and it's a treat seeing an ensemble cast having this much fun.
More entertaining than it appears
Martin McDonagh clearly has a talent for getting the best from his actors, although the more readily apparent skill would be writing awesome dialogue. Here's where McDonagh succeeds where Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarentino often fail: he actually develops his one-dimensional characters. It would have been extremely easy to make Marty the soul of this movie --- he's the only remotely normal main character, after all --- but he went out of his way to show the pain of almost every goofy-ass character in this script.
Exception noted, Mr. Harrelson
The technical side of the film was all done well enough (I liked the cinematography, although it was never too showy), but it is the writing that stands out the most.
That is a good thing and a bad thing. The good side I have already explained --- funny script, unexpected depth, etc. --- but the bad side comes into play about halfway through the film. It gets meta. I'm not a huge fan of metafiction, but I can appreciate when it is done well. Thankfully, Seven Psychopaths doesn't screw it up or get too pretentious. This is probably my favorite metafictional movie since Adaptation. It's not that the movie has a metafictional aspect to it that bothers me --- it's that that aspect doesn't really come into play until the film is half over. It felt like the script suddenly sobered up at the 45-minute mark and decided to put off the predictably silly and violent ending that it was so clearly heading toward in the first half of the film. Had the meta been more prevalent earlier in the movie (or less prevalent later), this would have been far more effective. Still, Seven Psychopaths is a blast to watch.
After an entire month of horror movie reviews, what better way to cleanse the palette than an animated feature for children? I opted to go with a movie that I had always been curious about, but never went to see because...well...I don't have kids, so I can pick and choose my animated movie experiences. Aside from the fact that the CG animation looks amazing in this trailer, this is also Zack Snyder's first effort at directing an animated movie (although I would argue that Watchmen and 300come pretty darn close), and I've always liked his visual touch, so hopefully this is pretty awesome.
In a throwback to 80s "children" movies like The Dark Crystal, The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole opens with a kidnapping. After all, who says that children's movies shouldn't make your children cry? Soren (voiced by Jim Sturgess) is an owl that was goofing off with his little brother, Kludd (Ryan Kwanten), when Kludd kicks Soren out of the nest, before he could fly. And, because nature abhors terrible siblings, Kludd also lost his balance and fell to the base of their maghty home tree, with Soren. Instead of getting eaten by Tasamanian Devils, which was apparently an option, the pair was rescued/kidnapped by a couple of dim-witted adult owls. These scary-looking creatures take young Soren and Kludd to a distant land, where they are presented with an interesting choice. They can either follow the racist/speciesist teachings of Nyra (Helen Mirren), queen of the Pure Ones, or they can become mindless slaves.
Alternate title: White (Owl) Power
Kludd opts to follow the obvious villain, while Soren rebels and tries to escape. The strange thing about the Pure Ones is that they're supposed to be the stuff of legend; Soren and Kludd grew up to takes of them being the villains in a long battle against the heroic Guardians. If the Pure Ones are real, I wonder if the Guardians could be real, too?
Above: an owl realizing that someone wrote sixteen books about owl racism
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole could not be a modern animated movie without a ridiculously famous cast of voice actors. The most effective in their roles were probably Helen Mirren and Geoffrey Rush; both have wonderfully emotive voices and did a fine job as important, but ultimately peripheral, characters. Rush plays a great grouch, so it was nice to see that talent being utilized. Hugo Weaving had a double role, although his voice talents are not exactly what I would call "audibly versatile." He fine fine in both parts, but anyone who knows his voice can instantly recognize him in both roles. Joel Edgerton was pretty good as the head bad guy, but it seems odd in retrospect that he was the cast member chosen for the villain role, and not Weaving or Rush.
Maybe he got the role thanks to his physical presence
Sam Neill was well-cast in a bit part, where his lovely voice was meant to be a contrast to his character's actions, and that was nicely done. But those are just the most notable supporting voice actors. Jim Sturgess played the main character, a young and idealistic owl who sometimes gets the benefits of super-slow motion shots.
ACTING!
Sturgess was fine, but this is a pretty generic character and he didn't really add anything special to the part. An odd thing about this cast (that I just noticed) is that it is predominantly Australian, with a few Brits sprinkled here and there. I didn't realize that owls needed to speak the Queen's English. Ryan Kwanten, Anthony LaPaglia, Richard Roxburgh, Leigh Whannell, David Wenham, Essie Davis, Abbie Cornish, and Angus Sampson, Aussies one and all, had roles of varying importance. Most of their voices were recognizable, but I guess that's point when you fill your voice cast with actual actors. None of them were bad, but none were too impressive. As for the non-Australian supporting cast, I thought Miriam Margolyes was suitably cartoonish as a snake nanny and Emily Barclay was suitably bland as the romantic interest for Jim Sturgess.
Romantic owl eyes are slightly unsettling
What about Zack Snyder's direction? It's no secret that Snyder likes to aim for "epic" as a director, and he did a solid job framing Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole in an epic fashion. It is interesting watching Snyder's direction in a film where he can get exactly the visuals he wants. It's not too different from his normal style. The visuals are stunning. The slow-motion is prominent and occasionally questionable.
Or, as Snyder likes to call it, "The speed at which all things should happen"
There are large-scale battles, where a small cast of heroes faces down a large number of interchangeable villains.
They're like Storm Troopers that cough up pellets
Snyder tells the story ably enough, but he doesn't get great performances out of his most important characters. The ideas of love and betrayal have never been prominent in any of Snyder's other films, so seeing him ignore them in a children's story might not be as surprising as it should be. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole has all the basic elements of an entertaining animated film, but there's no emotional core to it. Part of the problem is with the writing, which spends little time on characterization, but the director should notice a little thing like entirely two-dimensional characters and have it changed.
I'm guessing he focused more on eye reflections than the script
My other problem with Legend of the Guardians is that it feels very, very familiar. If you're familiar with Star Wars or the Chronicles of Narnia, or just about any other epic tale with children as an intended audience, then you've seen this plot before. A lot of kid's movies are like that, but this feels like a Frankenstein of epic childhood fiction, with the only new addition being the owls.
This scene actually dubs in dialogue from Attack of the Clones
I take that back. Making some of the child characters into mindless slaves is somewhat unique, especially in a movie aimed at children.
The moment that crystallized my feelings toward Legend of the Guardians came toward the end. After growing up with tales of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole, Soren is happy to tell his father that the Guardians are not just legend, but are real. His father's response was, "You made them real." At first glance, it looks like the meaningless "kids rawk" fluff that often pops up in animated movies. But this was so blatantly wrong that my wife got seriously irritated. She actually raised her voice to ask, "HOW? They already exist!" My wife doesn't like every movie, but she doesn't loudly question movies very often. To put that in perspective, the last time she watched an animated feature and wasn't happy with it was G-Force. Congrats, Legend of the Guardians, you are in elite company. Apparently, there was not enough cute to counteract the dull and stupid here.
Sorry kid, not cute enough
Let's be honest, though. This is a movie for kids, and the standards of entertainment for children are comically low. Sadly, Legend of the Guardians doesn't quite meet those unimpressive standards. There are a few moments that truly "wow" the viewer --- yes, they are in slow motion --- but they are not the most important or memorable parts of the plot.
This scene > rain flying
However, thanks to the dull story, these inconsequential scenes are what I remember most about this film. The story is too dark to be cutesy, but there are characters clearly designed to just be cute. And yet, the story is not dark enough to be frightening or to make the story less predictable. Even the primary staple of animated movies, the goofy supporting character, is absent for most of this movie. Yes, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole looks nice, but it is genuinely uninteresting and charmless.
I typically don't have to think much when reviewing a movie. I watch, I ponder briefly --- often as I type --- and share my judgement with a disinterested world via this blog. I had a hard time with Sucker Punch, though. It's not the first time I had difficulty accurately capturing my thoughts on a screen, but unlike Ingmar Bergman's Persona, this wasn't because I was confused by the film. To better illustrate my difficulty, I would like to present you with the plot, complete with my reactions to the first twenty minutes of the film (my reactions are in bold):
Five minutes in
So, Baby Doll's (Emily Browning) mom dies, leaving her and her sister with their (presumed step-) father (Gerard Plunkett), who likes to leer at his daughters, especially when other people are present, like at a funeral. Why have there been multiple slow-motion shots already? There's been no action to justify them. When dead mom leaves everything in her will to the kids --- which I assume is supposed to be a significant amount, although it is never again referenced in the film, despite it being a key motivating factor --- molester dad decides to molest his kids. When Baby Doll fights back, he locks her in her room and goes after the sister. Baby Doll breaks out, starts a house fire, steals daddy's gun, accidentally starts a gas leak, and shoots daddy. He doesn't die. The sister does. The police show up and take Baby Doll to the insane asylum. What the hell kind of police action is that? You can prove prolonged sexual abuse, even on the sister-corpse, and the cops let the sister's death get pinned on Baby Doll, despite it not being a gun-related death? And what was the point of showing the gas leak, if there was never an explosion? Fire and gas leaks don't play well, especially in films, and yet Sucker Punch decides that it is above little nuisances like exploding houses. By the way, the plot and cinematography in these scenes felt like a mash-up homage to the music videos of Korn and Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun". Cheery stuff. What a great way to start a movie that is supposed to be an action-fantasy movie with hot chicks in it.
To be fair, thigh-highs and guns are on the way
Ten minutes in
Baby Doll is being walked through the insane asylum, accompanied by molester dad. While walking through, the camera holds on specific items as Baby Doll passes. I wonder if these seemingly commonplace items will be important later on? Subtle! In the asylum, we meet Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac), an asylum orderly or something like that. He and daddy discuss (in a room filled with people, and it's not like they are whispering) their plan to have Baby Doll illegally lobotomized (in front of Baby Doll, mind you) by a doctor who will visit the asylum in five days. Meanwhile, Baby Doll shares a glance filled with meaning (or homo-eroticism, I can't tell which) with Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), from across the room of crazy folk. Fast-forward five days, and Baby Doll is in the surgery chair, with an ice pick-looking thing milliseconds away from being nailed through her eye socket. Well, at least we have something not-at-all-depressing to look forward to: a happy ending for a victim of sexual abuse and police mis-investigation. I bet the deleted scenes show forty minutes of her being object raped by Blue Jones. But wait! Everything changes!
Twenty minutes in
Baby Doll has entered a fantasy world, one where she is an orphan (what a shitty fantasy) and has been more or less purchased by a gangster to work in his whorehouse/dance club. But she's not going to have sex yet! Of course not. That would make sense. Instead, she is awaiting the arrival of the High Roller, to whom she and her virginity will be sold. All the other girls from the insane asylum (or at least the attractive ones) are in this fantasy world as dancing prostitutes.
They do look happy as hookers
For a fantasy world, though, their lives all kind of suck. Aside from the whole being-forced-to-have sex-for-money thing, they are often victimized by whorehouse employees and can be killed for misbehaving. Baby Doll knows that she must escape before the High Roller arrives, so she hatches a plan to steal certain items (perhaps the ones that were slow-motion-ed earlier? Subtlety pays off!) that will help her and the others escape. The key to the plan is for Baby Doll to distract particular men by doing her sexy (and nudity-free) dance, which has the ability to mesmerize any audience. Except the film's audience, because we are never privy to a single moment of Baby Doll dancing. And when Baby Doll dances, everything changes again! Now, we are in a fantasy world where the whores are essentially the heroines of an action video game, fighting off orcs, dragons, robots, samurai demons, and steam-powered German zombies.
Because normal action scenes were too realistic
Sweet! Now we have a ridiculous fantasy within a crappy fantasy, with an assured lobotomy awaiting when we leave these fantasy worlds! It's like a Russian nesting doll, only one that is made of crap!
What a depressing movie! All the promotional work for Sucker Punch promises high-octane action and elaborate fantasy --- the tagline was "You will be unprepared" --- and yet we are shoved into a film where innocent women are repeatedly victimized by evil, evil men. I suppose the tagline was right.
The acting in Sucker Punch is hard to gauge. It is certainly not good, but the script is beyond wretched, so it's hard to completely blame the cast.
Literally one million times better than Sucker Punch dialogue
The ladies fared better than most of the guys. Emily Browning got to deliver dead-eyed cliches, Abbie Cornish had strong opinions until she suddenly didn't, Jena Malone balanced some decent horror-stricken scenes with some numbingly dull lines, and Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung stare vacantly in the background of scenes. Carla Gugino gave her very best Natasha from The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle impression. While these women certainly didn't "wow" with their acting, I will admit that they struck cheesecake poses quite well. The men of Sucker Punch were pretty terrible. Oscar Isaac is the lead male, and he's about as subtle as a Disney villain; I'm shocked that his mustache wasn't long enough to twirl.
But he looks so understanding!
Scott Glenn shows up as the advisor to the super-heroines of the video game-ish fantasy world. He basically acts like a lesser Charlie to their Angels, and his last line in each scene begins "One more thing..." followed by something nearly impossible. I won't begrudge an old man acting with young beauties, but it was a dumb role and he can do better. Jon Hamm also has a brief appearance, but his dialogue is so wooden and unnatural that it felt like he was reading off cue cards for his three minutes of screen time.
While there are many problems with Sucker Punch, most of them can be laid at the feet of director/co-writer Zack Snyder. This was Snyder's first attempt at adapting an original screenplay, and that took on even more importance after the criticisms he received for being too devoted to the source texts for 300 and Watchmen. This was his chance to show off what his imagination could do without the restrictions that come with staying true to a source story. And the result was an overcomplicated plot about women being victimized? I would not have guessed that. Sure, Snyder was probably trying to show these women as empowered, because they fight back and the bad men are all eventually punished; too bad that concept never actually reached the script, much less the big screen. And here's a tip: revenge against abusers by the abused is not the same thing as empowerment. It boggles my mind that this film was green-lit. Who is the target audience? It is a PG-13 movie with no gore or nudity that focuses on sexy ladies in action scenes. It tries to incorporate music in the same way Moulin Rouge did, only without any explicit significance to the plot. And what was with all the rape?!? It's like Sucker Punch was made for internet-deprived video game enthusiasts who love musicals, but hate sex and violence, and want to masturbate to rape fantasies. Maybe Snyder watched I Spit On Your Grave and thought to himself, "That was great, but how can I sell this to a wider audience?"
Answer: Sailor Moon outfits
Zack Snyder also failed as a director in Sucker Punch. This movie is full of scantily-clad women and ridiculous action sequences in fantastic worlds, and it still feels really, really boring. The pacing is just atrocious. It doesn't help that the plot is obvious and predictable, but Snyder has developed a style where he plods forward with his stories and randomly throws in slow-motion scenes, regardless of appropriateness. Nothing ever happens quickly in a Sucker Punch, especially the action. That was an interesting choice that glorified the violence in 300; without an R rating, all that style provides in Sucker Punch is a longer running time. Speaking of the rating, for a movie that clearly wants the audience to ogle its women, I found the lack of nudity or consensual sex astonishing. If there is a way for Snyder to show off cleavage or an ass in a slow-motion shot, he makes it happen. And yet...PG-13. No sex, no violence...so what the hell was I suppose to look forward to, once the plot was obviously terrible?
One of the few ass-free camera shots
Even the soundtrack was annoying. Each song was sung by a female artist and they were mostly cover versions of songs made famous by male singers. That would be fine, I suppose, but the songs are all used in the same manner (to vaguely describe the actions in the video game fantasy) with the same sound (breathy vocals and faux electronic rock production). Do I really need a trip hop version of The Stooges' "Search and Destroy"? No, I do not. Bjork's "Army of Me" was remixed for the movie, and it serves as Baby Doll's sexy dance song, despite having a strange beat and absolutely no sexiness in the song itself.
I wasn't expecting a whole lot from Sucker Punch. I was hoping for either a cool visual experience or something ridiculous enough to make me laugh. This movie featured a gundam with an angry cartoon bunny face on it, and I was still bored stupid.
At this point, I didn't even care...and there were fifty minutes left!
The action, which should have been awesome, was boring and routine. The villains didn't put up a fight and with no gore, there were no shocking moments.
The absolute worst thing about Sucker Punch is that it is not completely inept. If this was made by an amateur filmmaker, it would certainly be more palatable (although I would still wonder about all the rape). Zack Snyder provides some very cool images and ideas --- like the steam-powered zombies --- and still managed to make an unwatchable film.
Cool-looking is rarely a solid character trait --- sorry, Boba Fett
The gorgeous images serve as a constant reminder that the rest of the movie absolutely sucks and will probably try to pee in your mouth if you fall asleep in front of your television. It's one thing to make a bad movie and know it's bad. I might not enjoy your movie, but I will respect the goals you set for your film. But I have no idea what Sucker Punch was attempting. I can't even argue that it aimed for the stars and simply fell short, because the story and script are so bad that they cannot be pretentious. This was just a complete failure on every artistic level, save for the visuals --- and even those could have been better and more imaginative. I felt insulted and cheated when this movie ended. Sucker Punch, indeed.
The half star is for the visuals, particularly the idea of steam-powered villains in World War I. And here's Bjork's video for "Army of Me," which is infinitely more creative and weird than Sucker Punch could ever hope to be.
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Finally! Two years after The Hangover surprised the movie industry by being a ridiculous hit, someone from the cast has moved on to starring roles! Yes, Bradly Cooper has apparently come of age in Hollywood; he has made a successful sequel, co-starred in The A-Team, and is now People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive," which I assume he received after slaying Ryan Reynolds. This is his first time carrying a major motion picture --- how did the new "it" man do?
Limitless is one of those movies that doesn't trust the audience to stick around for a slow-building plot. Most of the film is told in a flashback, with some narration from Cooper in the lead role. Apparently, he made a "miscalculation," which has led to his neighbor being murdered, with Cooper's character up next. Did that hook you? Probably not. It's a pretty generic opening for a thriller. Did it make sense? I sure hope so, because that's about as much detail as the teaser bookends of this movie offer. But I'll clear things up. Eddie (Bradley Cooper) is a loser who fancies himself a writer. He has a book deal, but he hasn't written a word in months. Aside from his writing, Eddie spends his time mooching off his girlfriend, Lindy (Abbie Cornish), whose parents were aviation nuts. That's just a logical guess on my part; these characters aren't terribly well-developed, so I just wanted to flesh her out a bit. Anyway, Lindy dumps Eddie because he's a self-centered mooch who makes excuses and looks like he is a member of Blind Melon.
Sexiest Man Alive
Obviously, Eddie is having a bad day. Immediately after the break-up talk, Eddie randomly bumps into his ex-brother-in-law, Vernon (Johnny Whitworth) who used to be a sleazy drug dealer. Now, replace "used to" with "still is," and you have his character's history. Vernon gives Eddie a single pill to cheer him up; Eddie takes it because his life is pretty awful and because he's an idiot who ingests mystery chemicals without asking what they are or what they do. The next thing Eddie knows, he has seduced a married woman, cleaned his apartment, and written 40 excellent pages of his novel.
Apparently, some people are productive when tripping balls
Of course, the effects wear off, so Eddie needs a fix from Vernon, who decides to be a jerk and make Eddie his errand boy to pay for the privilege of buying more of the drug, which he calls NZT-48. This drug supposedly allows people to access 100% of their brain's capabilities, which explains the writing and the philandering, I guess. After all, brains love sex and words. Vernon is murdered by an unknown party who were also apparently looking for this rare drug. They didn't find it. Eddie did. Now Eddie can get his life on track with a haircut, a new job, millions of dollars, and all the fancy stuff he could ever want because he is suddenly a genius at everything. All thanks to drugs! But living the high life doesn't come cheap, and Eddie finds himself faced with unruly Russian mobsters, a demanding boss, mystery people trying to steal his fix, and a permanently smug expression.
Okay, it's a clever ad campaign. I still want to slap him.
Thank goodness drugs never have any negative repercussions, especially mystery drugs that are designed to influence they way your brain functions.
I wasn't terribly impressed with Bradley Cooper in this, his first big starring role. He was okay, given the story, but being a mediocre actor with a stupid story is nothing special. I will say that his character's long hair was the least believable handsome-actor-obviously-wearing-an-ugly-wig I've seen since John Cusack in Being John Malkovich. Aside from that, Cooper alternates smugness with wimpy panicky moments. Abbie Cornish is decent as Eddie's responsible, sane, and pretty love interest.
She is essentially designed to be Eddie's moral sounding board, letting him know that doing drugs and lying isn't cool, which is as thankless a task as it sounds. Robert DeNiro is okay as a super-duper international businessman, but the threat that his character promises is never followed through with. Anna Friel has a bit part as Eddie's ex-wife, and she is far less attractive when make-up artists don't want her to be pretty. Andrew Howard plays the Russian thug with more joy than anybody else in this cast, but it's a pretty standard role that has little new to offer. Rounding out the cast, Tomas Arana is once again "that guy you don't trust to do the right thing."
Director Neil Burger handled Limitless with some spurts of imagination that seemed inspired by the title; the rest of the time, he was fairly awful. First, the good: Burger used some pretty cool visuals to show how Eddie was using his brain more (the ceiling tiles turning into stock quotes, letters falling in his room, etc.), and I liked the recurring use of having a character literally step outside themselves to see their situation with new, drug-fueled, eyes. Now, the bad: this was a predictable, cliche-ridden plot with shallow characters and no one to root for.
Oh, and the "zoom forward" effect that is used throughout the movie looks like the work of an uninspired music video director, circa-1995. The plot is certainly to blame for a lot of the problems with Limitless, but it is ultimately up to the director to make a script into a good film. Burger doesn't quite do that.
Immediately after finishing Limitless, I thought to myself that it wasn't great, but wasn't bad, either. Hardly a recommendation, but not a head on a pike to warn others, either. Then I started to think about it. This is a movie that advocates ingesting mind-altering chemicals, despite horrible and fatal repercussions. This is a film where the hero has a true love, but still bangs every other woman he encounters in the movie. This is a story where a huge problem for Eddie is his limited supply of Limitless pills and he shows a remarkable ability to master any craft he pays any attention to. Even more remarkably, Eddie apparently chooses not to learn anything about science and instead hires a random science dude to make more; even stranger, Eddie doesn't feed science guy any drugs to make him suddenly brilliant. That is a pretty stupid plot hole for a movie that is supposed to be about being smart. I think DeNiro was used poorly, and I would have really liked to see him (or anyone, really) out-think Eddie.
DeNiro, reacting to someone saying how much they loved Showtime
Aside from the gaping plot hole, Limitless isn't a bad thriller. No, I never liked Eddie or any of the other characters, but I thought the premise was an interesting one. There is a moral dilemma that arises when people significantly alter themselves, and I liked that notion, even if this film clearly wasn't going to delve into the subject. Hell, this story does its best to avoid morality or guilt whenever possible; Eddie shows no emotion for anyone that has suffered because of him, even his innocent (and murdered) neighbor in the beginning of the film. I also found it interesting to see drugs shown in such a positive light, even a fictional one with lethal side effects. Sadly, taking a questionable stance on pharmaceuticals isn't enough to overcome the plot holes or the soulless characters. The idea has some legs, but on the whole, this is a little underwhelming.
