【電影簡介】

影片改編自2002年Alan Glynn編著的同名小說，講述男主角埃迪發現了一種能提高大腦工作效率的新型藥NZT－48。可是這種藥雖然能幫助達到常人所不能達到的地步，大獲成功之余。也有致命的作用：身體不適和失控的情緒。而此時埃迪已不能離開這種藥，這使他進入了一個黑暗領域。
布萊德利·庫珀在片中飾演一個丟掉了工作的潦倒作家：艾迪·莫萊。他沒有工作、沒有收入，甚至連他的女朋友林迪也果斷地選擇離開。在窮困、潦倒和無所事事中，艾迪對生活失望了。他覺得自己不可能會有什么未來，就在這個時候，他的朋友向他介紹了一種正處在試驗階段的藥物－－NZT。
NZT是一種頭腦藥物，吃下去之后可以使人的精神集中力提高。艾迪在無聊之中吃掉了這顆看上去很不起眼的小藥丸，結果他變成了一個頭腦超人。艾迪一洗之前的頹廢和低迷，變得炯炯有神且充滿自信。在NZT的幫助下，艾迪的腦子就像是計算機的中央處理器般好使。他能記住與之相關的所有的事情－－那些他看到的、讀到的或者是聽到的事情都深刻地印在了他的腦子里。有了這么好的一個腦子，艾迪開始在股市和金融市場上小試身手。沒想到出師就捷，艾迪撈到了一大筆錢。他的杰出的賺錢能力，引起了金融大鱷卡爾·范·羅恩的注意，他把艾迪招致麾下，將其視作自己新的"經濟增長點"。
艾迪搶眼的成功當然也給他帶來了不小的麻煩。幾個殺手陸陸續續找上門來，希望能從他的手中搞到NZT。但是NZT的副作用這個時候卻漸漸顯露了出來，它讓艾迪的腦子非常混亂，身體不適、情緒失控、精神分裂等等副作用一并發生。艾迪能克服這些困難，走出低谷并逃脫殺手們的追殺么？

【音頻文本】

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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