Whatever Gets Me Moving

Akane and I just finished watching Limitless on Netflix and I wasn't at all disappointed in the premise or execution. Really, it was a pleasant, if not confusing, surprise to find it on the streaming service -- hadn't the film come out just this year, maybe early summer? It's a distraction to check now, but I'm wondering if Limitless didn't do all that well at the box office. Sci-fi all too often doesn't, even when it stars Hollywood's Hot Young Thang, Mr. Bradley Cooper.

To tell the truth, Cooper's growing on me as a screen presence. He's versatile, playing comedy, dumb-as-bricks action and even some drama roles respectably well. And shit, can he nail the hyper-intellectual drugged-up jet set New York douchebag in Limitless like nobody else my mind can imagine. The guy speaks fluent French, too -- perhaps the source of his chops in this role. (I kid, I kid. Experience has taught me not to believe the prevailing public opinions about the French character.)

What I really enjoyed about the film (other than when Abbie Cornish used a little girl as an improvised melee weapon of last resort -- beautiful) was how it ended. That just can't be said about enough genre movies in my opinion. It had just the right amount of resolution to wrap things up for Cooper and Cornish's characters, yet doesn't leave so much dangling that there could have been a depressingly mediocre sequel. Thank goodness for minor miracles.

What's more, it left just the right amount of What Nows and What Ifs about the future of the movie's universe to set my mind racing and spark discussion between me and Akane. What is the fate of NZT, the drug that enhances Cooper's cognition? What will its effects be on society if/when it finally leaks? Will it widen or narrow the divide between the Haves/Have-Nots? Will it hasten a Singularity event?

I suppose the possibilities are...limitless.