MesaHead

This film borrows way too much from "Fight Club. The visual style,the tone of the narrative voice and certain plot devices are especially obvious. "Limitless" opens in exactly the same point in the chronology that "Fight Club" does, with main character in a similar predicament. But the storyline,among other things, is not nearly as clever or compelling. I guess you could say it just doesn't pack the same punch. (Sorry about that). At times it's just plain boring. Robert De Niro's presence adds some gravity to the production but there really isn't much for him to do with his character, so even he can't rescue this pretty looking failure from itself. You'd be better off watching a slashed version of "Fight Club" on basic cable for the umpteenth time.

This is one of those movies that makes you chuckle at the end because it did not answer any of the questions it sparked along the way. Yet, the more I think or talk about it the deeper it seems. The best supernatural thrillers are those that end with a sense of closure coupled with ambiguity. To me this is more "real" than a film that pretends to have all of the answers. No matter how enmeshed one becomes in the supernatural there will always remain a sense of mystery. Our natural minds just cannot completely encompass the purpose and mechanics of the supernatural world. More than once the Old Testament says of God "His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thinking." In the New Testament Paul wrote that at best we "see through a glass darkly". I believe this sums up the inherent futility of man's attempt to impose his logic on a dimension that has it's own separate logic. It's a language we cannot speak, spoken on a frequency we can rarely and barely discern if ever at all.

Weir succeeds in conveying a sense of consciousness in nature phenomenon. In fact the weather appears to be separate character with it's own distinct visage and voice. This is the films greatest achievement.

The film sets everything up well but ultimately fails to engage us plot. At pivotal moments the key characters motivations are not clear at all. Why does Chamberlains character do that at the end? Why is this place or that thing so special? I really didn't understand the most fundamental plot device until I watched the interview included in the extras. A great film doesn't require Cliff's notes.

I think Weir was trying to give us sense of the supernatural and our relation to it by "implying" it through sounds and images. That's good. It works. This is "real". The problem is that the plot is also merely implied. While I was enticed to watch until the end and pleased with the mood of the film in the end there was no payoff.

I love good black comedies. The best example of a true black comedy is "Dr. Strangelove". Although it's plot revolves around the possibility of the complete destruction of humanity it still manages to be funny from beginning to end. The problem with many black comedies is, although they have an absurd basis, they are just to bleak to be deserving of the description "comedy". "Visoneers" does manage to supply a handful of mildly humorous moments. Most of the real humor is generated by Zach Galafianakis body language. But, overall, this one fails as a comedy. That might be forgivable if the film turned out to be as original as it's synopsis implies. Unfortunately as the story progresses it degenerates into a low budget clone of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil". "Visioneers" also borrows way too heavily from other films such as "Fahrenheit 451", "Network", "1984" and even "Idiocracy." Although "Visioneers" is not without some merit, there are much better ways to spend an hour and thirty-five minutes