Brain Juice and Juiced Bairn

Bradley Cooper moons about in Limitless a thriller about the powerful effects of a smart drug which increases brain function to super genius level. Once Cooper's drunken dead-beat author ingests his first pill he is transformed into a razor sharp, Wall St. player with fighty/drivey skills and his life is changed but not always for the best. De Niro turns up at the halfway mark just as things turn a little sinister but he can't lift this above the usual paper thin effort from the Hollywood factory floor even with the help of some distinct SFX sequences, a shame as it has the kernal of a good idea.

Hanna is an action thriller about a teenage girl trained in the way of killing in an Artic forest hideaway but is soon unleashed on the world in a bloody quest to avenge her Mother's death. It's not bad with some stylish cinematography, some excellent action and Saoirse Ronan does a decent job in the title role but the pacing is a little uneven and the whole teenage assassin plot thing is a little unbelievable and especially so after the her origins are revealed. Despite these qualms it's still an entertaining watch with Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana providing quality support to proceedings and oh it's a Euro/US coproduction so it manages to avoid most of Tinseltown's homogenising mania.