Limitless
(Starring Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Abbie Cornish)
A man who instantly becomes über-smartâ┚¬â€Âthere are probably a hundred interesting ways to tell that story. Limitless spins it three or fours waysâ┚¬â€Âall these plotlines are well done in their own right, but none of them terribly creative, skillfully connected, or fully fleshed out.
Sexy Cooper plays a schlubby writer who cannot seem to finish his book. One day, his ex brother-in-law gives him a super-pill for no apparent reason and the drug taps that proverbial 80% of the brain we don't use. Suddenly, Cooper is finishing his magnum opus, becoming a card shark, winning on Wall Street, and solving murders. His brainpower captures the interest of ex-girlfriend Cornish, financial tycoon De Niro, and the Russian mob.
It's a solid idea, but the execution is sort of scatterbrained, lacking the focus and intricate structure that would've made Limitlessâ┚¬Â¦well, intelligent.
Cooper (The Hangover, The A Team) does a great job carrying the movie, making a believable transition from hobo to handsome. The other characters are a little more boring. Cornish seems shallow and vacillating, and poor De Niro is lost in the detritus. This cluttered film relies too much on voice-over to keep everything glued together. Director Neil Burger seems to specialize in average films (The Illusionist, The Lucky Ones) told with panache. Here his camera tricks are plentiful but not all that special. It's like all the plotsâ┚¬â€Ânumerous but not very unique.
Red Riding Hood
(Starring Amanda Seyfried, Shiloh Fernandez, Max irons, Virginia Madsen, Billy Burke, Gary Oldman, Julie Christie)
This mutt of a movie is Twilight meets Grimm fairy tales. Red Riding Hood skips over its supernatural mystery for a heaving adolescent romance. It'll find its young prey, but nothing more.
Seyfried is the prettiest, smartest girl in a Bavarian village plagued by a werewolf. One full moon, the animal quits eating the town's livestock sacrifices and starts killing inhabitants. Creepy crusader priest Oldman announces that the beast is a resident in disguise. Is it one of Seyfried's parents (Burke, Madsen), her spooky grandma (Christie) who lives outside the town in the woods, or even one of the girl's two suitors (Fernandez, Irons)?
This neat premise could've taught the old fairy tale some new tricks. Instead RRH rolls around in earnest teenaged melodrama.
It's no surprise to find director Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight) and writer David Johnson (Orphan) helming this pubescent bodice-ripper. Despite a few good visuals, the characters are dull. Seyfried is shallow and uninteresting, lacking drive and deduction. The monster kills her sister, and yet it's not long before she's back to flirting and fretting about her beaus. The final moments are just plain preposterous and gross, but the filmmakers had to tie this lovesick mongrel up any way they could.
Sucker Punch
(Starring Emily Browning, Jena Malone, Abbie Cornish, Vanessa Hudgens)
Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen, Legend of the Guardians) is a very dynamic, artistic director; there's no denying that. What he often lacksâ┚¬â€Âwhat so many auteur directors like him, Tim Burton, and Terry Gilliam lackâ┚¬â€Âare stories as artfully rendered as the visuals.
Browning (Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events) is an orphan child terrorized by her wicked stepfather. When stepdad fails at incest, he carts Browning off to Lennox House, a post-modern asylum of Dickensian darkness. There she finds she has five days to get out or be lobotomized by the all-male attendants. She enlists the help of four other inmates, a teacher and her own overactive imagination to find five simple items and escape.
Browning's imagination (or whatever this place is) is a fascinating mishmash that informs the quest. Evil robots and Nazis bump up against realms of martial arts starkness and cabaret-like glitzâ┚¬â€Âeverything gritty and bleak. Without a coherent, driving story and clever dialogue, though, it's all ADHD eye candy with a dumb ending. The final product is that of an over-manipulated comic book.
Teeming with sexy, underage women and steam-punk visuals, Sucker Punch could have been groundbreaking. Buried in here is an idea of how powerful young women survive in an increasingly violent, male-centric world. Instead the flick feels exploitativeâ┚¬â€Âa boy's fantasy fodder instead of the girl's manifesto it should have been.
