Limitless
For this entry we’re hailing back three years and in doing so skipping over some more recent movies that are much more definitely transhumanist – but it makes sense to put Limitless directly next to Lucy on the list, as its very similar central concept makes it such an obvious point of comparison. That being said, Limitless only just passed the test to make it onto the list (for reasons discussed below); but its clear use of the concept – and language – of enhancement won it a place in the end.
Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is a struggling writer whose lack of finances, motivation and progress have rendered him a relatively hopeless individual. By chance he runs into his ex brother-in-law, who attempts to convince him to take a small clear pill – something called NZT-48 – that will apparently be the answer to all of his problems. Eddie resists at first, but when he later comes face to face with his out of pocket and confrontational landlady, he decides that as things could not be much worse, he may as well risk the pill.
Within seconds, Eddie finds himself able to recall distant and until-now-apparently useless memories, and knowledge that he had had no idea he had retained, and is suddenly able to efficiently and charmingly talk his way around his landlady in a way that surprises even himself. The effects wear off after some time, but Eddie procures a stock and as he continues to take NZT, gets to grips with this newfound and seemingly impossible rate of brain processing.
He learns the piano in three days. He becomes fluent in languages simply by listening to the odd instruction tape. His mind becomes a vast mine of knowledge, information, data and understanding, and is accompanied by an enhanced ability to reproduce and use these capacities, making him socially popular, confident, and self-assured. Finally, Eddie makes use of his extraordinary mental powers to enter the stock market, making enormous returns on small investments until he attracts the attention of the trading heavyweights who draw him into the world of corporate power and multi-million dollar business mergers.
There are two particularly striking things about how director Neil Burger handles the enhancements that Eddie experiences. The first is the style of his directing (which you can see in the video below). As Eddie takes the pill for the first time, we have a sequence full of camera zooms, rapidly panning shots, sound distortion and flashes of images that combine Eddie’s here and now experience of his brain suddenly performing at a level that he is not used to, with the focus on details- such as the title of the book in his landlady’s bag – that make Eddie aware that his brain is giving him access to random things he might have once upon a time noticed in some context or another and that have suddenly become relevant again.
At the end of this sequence there is one final overall effect; the change in colour tone. Whereas prior to Eddie’s taking of NZT, the colours were little more than drab, dreary, greys and blues, the screen now positively glows with a brilliance that undoubtedly reflects the same sudden brilliance of Eddie’s mind (when he is off NZT, the tones revert back to the previous dull hues). Even Eddie’s eyes appear to have changed colour. Although, I can’t wade into the debate of whether or not Cooper’s already famously blue eyes were digitally or physically enhanced for these shots without running the risk of a grisly death by stiletto from a good proportion of the female population, so we’ll leave the jury out on that one.
Besson also often relied on artistic visuals; Lucy’s ability to physically see the endless strings of telecommunications springs forcibly (and by forcibly, I mean laughably) to mind here – but again, Besson was also relying on the audience simply accepting that Lucy could do this. From the very outset, Burger is setting up the explanation of how Eddie is able to do what he does.