| Directed by | Neil Burger |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Leslie Dixon Ryan Kavanaugh Scott Kroopf |
| Screenplay by | Leslie Dixon |
| Based on | The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn |
| Starring | Bradley Cooper Abbie Cornish Robert De Niro |
| Music by | Paul Leonard-Morgan |
| Cinematography | Jo Willems |
| Edited by | Tracy Adams Naomi Geraghty |
Production
company |
Virgin Produced
Rogue Many Rivers Boy of the Year Intermedia Film |
| Distributed by | Relativity Media |
Release dates
|
|
Running time
| 105 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $27 million[1] |
| Box office | $161.8 million[2] |
Critical reception:
Limitless received generally positive reviews from film critics. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 70% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 186 reviews, with an average score of 6.4/10. The site's consensus states: "Although its script is uneven, Neil Burger directs Limitless with plenty of visual panache, and Bradley Cooper makes for a charismatic star."[13] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received a score of 59 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 and 1/2 stars and said it was "not terrifically good, but the premise is intriguing" and also stated that director Neil Burger uses "inventive visual effects." Lastly he said, "Limitless only uses 15, maybe 20 percent of its brain. Still, that's more than a lot of movies do."
Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Limitless should be so much smarter than it is," believing that it took conventional plot turns and stuck closely to genre elements like Russian gangsters and Wall Street crooks. Honeycutt reserved praise for Cooper, Abbie Cornish, and Anna Friel. He also commended cinematographer Jo Willems' camerawork and Patrizia von Brandenstein's production design in the film's array of locales.
Variety 's Robert Koehler called Limitless a "propulsive, unexpectedly funny thriller". Koehler wrote, "What makes the film so entertaining is its willingness to go far out, with transgressive touches and mind-bending images that take zoom and fish-eye shots to a new technical level, as the pill enables Eddie to experience astonishing new degrees of clarity, perception and energy." He said of Cooper's performance, "Going from grungy to ultra-suave with a corresponding shift in attitude, Cooper shows off his range in a film he dominates from start to finish. The result is classic Hollywood star magnetism, engaging auds [audiences] physically and vocally, as his narration proves to be a crucial element of the pic's humor." The critic also positively compared Willems' cinematography to the style in Déjà Vu (2006) and commended the tempo set by the film's editors Naomi Geraghtyand Tracy Adams and by composer Paul Leonard-Morgan.[17]Limitless received the award for Best Thriller at the 2011 Scream Awards and was nominated for Best Science Fiction Film at the 2012 Saturn Awards, but lost to Rise of the Planet of the Apes.[18][19]
