Film Review: Limitless (15)

THE PLOT
Eddie Morra’s girlfriend has left him because his life, along with his writing, is in a slowly spiralling decline. Following the break-up, Eddie (Bradley Cooper) bumps into Vernon, his ex-wife’s brother, who gives him a pill that is supposed to increase the brains activity from 10% to 100%! Taking this designer drug reveals the claim is justified and overnight turns the struggling writer into a powerhouse. However, the effects are fleeting and Eddie needs another hit.

Tracking down Vernon (CSI: Miami’s Det. Jake Berkeley) Eddie discovers Vernon dead and his apartment ransacked but manages to uncover the pill’s hiding place. So begins an addiction that brings Eddie fame, money, enemies and potentially agonising death.

Within what seems about a week Eddie finishes his novel and has become a major trader on the stock market, attracting the attention of some big fish. Enter Carl van Loon (Robert De Niro), a business mogul who challenges Morra to advise him on a merger that could make billions. For this, Morra must be at the top of his game, but his stash is running low and the side effects are becoming more severe.

THE REVIEW
I’ll set this out from the start… I wanted to see a film and this looked like the best of what was on general release that I hadn’t yet seen. From this you can see that neither my expectation nor my demands were particularly high. This proved relatively beneficial.

Cooper was entertaining enough but nothing special, except maybe for the ladies, and even then I’m guessing only after he stopped dressing like a street urchin. De Niro’s role could have been played by almost any sixty-something Hollywood actor, as his talents seemed wasted on this script. In fact, with the exception of Cooper’s Morra, most characters seemed underdeveloped, two-dimensional and frequently stereotyped. This is a pity, as the idea behind the film seems like it could have had potential as a dark and gritty alternative reality, rather than the colour-by-numbers stuff served up here.

I didn’t hate this film, however, even if it was 15 minutes longer than it needed to be; a remarkable thing in itself, considering the film’s tendency to take considerable jumps forward in time. You’d think they just skip the boring shit and get on with it! Limitless is entertaining in the main, but plays it close to the bone, delivering a relatively flat experience.

THE VERDICT
Halfway through you realize Limitless has some considerable boundaries that turn a film with some potential into a forgettable way to kill 100 minutes
TC

Director: Neil Burger
Writers: Leslie Dixon (screenplay), Alan Glynn (novel)
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Abbie Cornish and Anna Friel
Running Time: 105 Mins

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UK Release Date: 23rd February 2011

Film Review: Battle: Los Angeles (12A)

THE PLOT

Soon to retire Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz (Aaron Ekhardt) is thrust back into combat with a platoon of new recruits, including platoon leader, newly promoted 2D Lieutenant William Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez). The enemy: Alien invaders. The objective: Rescue civilians, destroy all hostiles and above all, hold Los Angeles.


THE REVIEW
Battle: LA offers a simple enough premise that doesn’t linger in getting down to business. Now I wasn’t expecting too much from this film, but it was my birthday and I wanted to see people blowing shit up! And I wasn’t disappointed. There was a real attempt to develop characters and create an atmosphere, an attempt that, considering the rush made in getting to the action, was relatively well done and shit-loads better than 2010’s invasion-bollocks Skyline.

There were a few plot absurdities; the military intel within hours of the first attacks that these invaders were after earth’s abundance of water (at which point I remembered the curses I made against M. Night Shyamalan for Signs). In addition, the fact that experienced squad leader Nantz, along with Air Force Recon TSgt. Elena Santos (a typecast but not annoying Michele Rodriguez) seemingly fails to pass on valuable intelligence to command on the aliens vital systems.

There were also a handful of moments for which the butch military bravado got a bit much, and the attempt to show a bit of heart following the death of a rescued civilian was so formulaically saccharine I found myself rolling my eyes and shaking my head.

The effects are as good as you’d expect these days and the action frenetic, in the style of Black Hawk Down; a somewhat tense street-to-street, building-to-building, running gunfight. Although with every single scene shot with a handi-cam, in an effort to keep it gritty and edgy, it gets a little tedious at best and potentially nauseating at worst. But this is ultimately just a minor annoyance in what is largely an entertaining if not memorable sci-fi flick.

PS Skyline was appalling.

THE VERDICT
If it’s action you want Battle: Los Angeles has it. Frantic and entertaining, this is one of the better alien invasion films in recent years.
TC

Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Writers: Christopher Bertolini
Stars: Aaron Eckhart, Ramon Rodriguez, Michelle Rodriguez, Ne-Yo and Bridget Moynahan
Running Time: 116 Mins

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UK Release Date: 11th March 2011

Film Review: The Adjustment Bureau (12A)

THE PLOT
Congressman David Norris (Matt Damon) is the leading candidate for the New York seat in the US Senate until photographs of a minor college indiscretion collapse his chances, like so many falling cards. An unlikely meeting with the stimulating Elise (Emily Blunt) in the men’s room, moments before his concessionary speech, gives him the spur to be frank and self deprecating, much to his aides chagrin.

Enter a group of trilby-wearing mysterios and what appears to be a dark plot. These are the men of the Adjustment Bureau, men who seem to know the future and set about manipulating it to their purpose. But what is that purpose? Do we control our destiny or is someone calling the shots? Agent Harry Mitchell (8 Mile’s Anthony Mackie) is Norris’ case worker, responsible for ensuring David spills his coffee in order to alter his future, but misses his opportunity resulting in two chance encounters that were never meant to be; the first, a second meeting with Elise and worse yet, he walks in on the Bureau at work on his friends and colleagues.

Freaked out, Norris flees, but each corridor he turns down and every room he enters his pursuers appear ahead of him, lead by Mad Men’s John Slattery. Eventually cornered, he is captured and informed that he was never meant to meet Elise again as he is not fated to be with her. The Bureau threatens to wipe David’s memory if he speaks of their existence and warn him away from Elise.

The result of his ‘off-script’ speech days earlier turns his fortunes, pushing him to stand again 3 years later with much good will and popularity. The passing time has done nothing to temper his thoughts of Elise and the frustration of never meeting her again. Every day he takes the same bus on which their last meeting took place, in the hope of meeting her again. Once again chance plays it’s part and they run into each other, launching the Bureau into action as they set about to break them apart.

THE REVIEW
Yet another film from the seemingly endless list of novels from Philip K. Dick, this is mostly about entertainment rather than deeper meaning, irrespective of the attempts to the contrary. But the entertainment value is quite high.

There are none-to-subtle allusions to a ‘god-like’ figure in the form of the never-seen-always-spoken-of Chairman, making the members of the Bureau his angelic minions. If you can cope with this pretence the movie runs quite well, but I’m betting some might find it tedious or frustrating in this regard.

The chase sequences are frenetic and well delivered with simple CGI enhancements that are nicely underplayed and relatively unobtrusive in spite of their importance to the plot.

Matt Damon is as reliable and convincing as ever, effortlessly portraying the rarest of people, a genuinely nice-guy politician. Emily Blunt was possibly miscast from the perspective that she struggled to maintain the accent, something that could so easily have been covered by the fact that the character is a ballerina, who feasibly may be well travelled. Why not just be English? The modern world is a small place! That aside, The Adjustment Bureau is entertaining and roughly worth the price of admission, but where critics getting ‘Inception meets Bourne’ is giving it more credit and gravitas than it deserves.

THE VERDICT
Entertaining, enjoyable and worth a watch, but never really exhilarating.
TC

Director: George Nolfi
Writers: George Nolfi (screenplay) and Philip K. Dick (short story)
Stars: Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, John Slattery and Terence Stamp
Running Time: 105 Mins

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UK Release Date: 4th March 2011