【电影简介】

影片改编自2002年Alan Glynn编著的同名小说，讲述男主角埃迪发现了一种能提高大脑工作效率的新型药NZT－48。可是这种药虽然能帮助达到常人所不能达到的地步，大获成功之余。也有致命的作用：身体不适和失控的情绪。而此时埃迪已不能离开这种药，这使他进入了一个黑暗领域。
布莱德利·库珀在片中饰演一个丢掉了工作的潦倒作家：艾迪·莫莱。他没有工作、没有收入，甚至连他的女朋友林迪也果断地选择离开。在穷困、潦倒和无所事事中，艾迪对生活失望了。他觉得自己不可能会有什么未来，就在这个时候，他的朋友向他介绍了一种正处在试验阶段的药物－－NZT。
NZT是一种头脑药物，吃下去之后可以使人的精神集中力提高。艾迪在无聊之中吃掉了这颗看上去很不起眼的小药丸，结果他变成了一个头脑超人。艾迪一洗之前的颓废和低迷，变得炯炯有神且充满自信。在NZT的帮助下，艾迪的脑子就像是计算机的中央处理器般好使。他能记住与之相关的所有的事情－－那些他看到的、读到的或者是听到的事情都深刻地印在了他的脑子里。有了这么好的一个脑子，艾迪开始在股市和金融市场上小试身手。没想到出师就捷，艾迪捞到了一大笔钱。他的杰出的赚钱能力，引起了金融大鳄卡尔·范·罗恩的注意，他把艾迪招致麾下，将其视作自己新的"经济增长点"。
艾迪抢眼的成功当然也给他带来了不小的麻烦。几个杀手陆陆续续找上门来，希望能从他的手中搞到NZT。但是NZT的副作用这个时候却渐渐显露了出来，它让艾迪的脑子非常混乱，身体不适、情绪失控、精神分裂等等副作用一并发生。艾迪能克服这些困难，走出低谷并逃脱杀手们的追杀么？

【音频文本】

Legend has it that we humans are using only ten percent of our brains. This old myth has created a myriad of fantasies, and one of the most recent is the movie Limitless.

Faced with the grim hold of "writer's block", young author Eddie is about to hit the bottom of his life, even his girlfriend is walking out on him. But his downward momentum is suddenly reversed by the acquisition of a bag of magic pills that help him tap the full potential of his brain. After finishing the whole book in four days, Eddie conceives an audacious plan for the future. But in order to get there, he has to make careful use of every precious pill in his secret stash to deal with the side effects, and the gangsters who would kill for his miracle pills.

The cinematography and visual effects are the best part of this piece. To mark the distinction between theordinary Eddie and the super Eddie with drug effects, the movie presents two versions of the world. With the ordinary Eddie, everything seems black-and-white, dark and gloomy; whereas with the drug-enhanced Eddie, everything is extraordinarily bright and colorful, implying that a man with superior brain capacity would possess sharper senses.

Bradley Cooper's rendering of the main character Eddie further enhances this distinction. The ordinary Eddie is a stuttering dumb writer with a lousy haircut, while the smart Eddie is a sober Wall-Street upstart radiant with confidence and glamour. Of course the extra lights and colors must have helped with the trick, but Cooper also did an excellent job in his portrayal of the character.

This distinction provides a fairly good beginning for the movie, but as the plot develops, things start todisappoint. You would expect someone with a four-digit IQ to find real smart solutions to his problems, but no, the director decides to add a little drama to it. And in most American movies, that either means sex, violence or failed attempts at tugging on the heart-strings. So in this case, violence is the most pertinent and dramatic solution the smart guy could come up with. Why not? Smart guys all appreciate the merit of simplicity.

The director must been so much engrossed in portraying and applauding the benefits of superior intelligence to realize that the story is too loosely organized. Narration is brought in to fill the loopholes, but the viewers can still sense the unusual pace that gathers in the lead-up to the hasty ending. Of course this could have been avoided, if the director had access to Eddie's magic pills.

There is still one more thing that bothers me. By taking the magic pills, Eddie has practically cheated the game of life. But by the end of the movie, he has done away with the gangsters and the side effects, andis running for president. Even a powerful man who has found out his secret was powerless to stop him. Yep,being super smart is just so invincible.

It takes a dreamer to appreciate the ending, which unfortunately I am not. So as a practical man with average intelligence, I could only give this movie a SIX.

By the way, research has shown that we do use 100 percent of our brain in our everyday life, so limitless power with super intelligence is indeed a beautiful dream.

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