Kennedy here, from Starbase 66 and Books You Should Read. As we near the end of Super-Hero Summer here at Simply Syndicated and Weather Station Studios, I’m looking back over the spandex-stretching package of costumed characters who flew across cinema screens in 2011. Old-school X-Men, Thor, Captain America, Green Lantern, Green Hornet, Cowboys and Aliens, with Conan yet to come, Priest (which I didn’t see) and, what the heck, I’ll throw in Transformers: Dork of the Moom, because some of our listeners live in Florida.

I expected to love Green Lantern and be indifferent to X-Men: First Class, but it turned out to be the reverse of that. I thought Green Hornet would suck nuggets, and it did, but in a way I kind of liked. Thor and Cap were fun, goofy comic adventures. Cowboys and Aliens was … well, I should have brought a book.

But the best super-hero movie of 2011, I would say, is one that flew under my radar, and yours, too, probably. I saw it when it was released once I knew what it was about, and then again this week on DVD, so you can believe me when I tell you it’s the best of the year.

I’m talking about Limitless.

While not based on a comic, it draws from the early Marvel approach to superheroics: loser gains powers, chooses to use said powers for good, not evil. Except for that last part, because greed drives this story.

It’s as though this movie was made for me. A slick action thriller about a down-and-out failed writer who finds success, fame and fortune through random chance, and develops heightened mental and physical powers? It appeals to everything I like in a story.

“I don’t know how to fight — or do I?” Our hero is able to access every long-forgotten memory, every observation, every fact, every movement, he’s ever seen. And he’s soon a millionaire stockbroker who speaks multiple languages, has a funny anecdote for every occasion, can kick serious kung-fu ass and can casually suggest cures for cancer over coffee.

Bradley Cooper, an actor I really like, plays Eddie Morra, and nails it. He begins the film scruffy and lost, and (no spoiler here) cleans up wonderfully as the story progresses. When he’s hurting, he looks it. Supporting cast: Robert De Niro (!!) as the maybe-he’s-evil business overlord, Abbie Cornish as the girlfriend (who strangely vanishes halfway through the story, after a major plot turn), Anna Friel as the ex-wife and the super-creepy Tomas Arana as The Man In The Tan Coat, possibly the most ominous bad guy of the year. There are also Russian mobsters and a lady who used to be on Thirtysomething.

The movie is shot through with New York light and uses, but doesn’t overuse, fishbowl lenses and fast zoom shots to illustrate how Morra sees the world with his hyper-accelerated intellect. There’s also a lot of humour, mostly from Cooper, who narrates the story in a way that doesn’t seem obvious — a rare trick in modern cinema. One sequence illustrates 18 lost hours in a way anyone who’s ever been on a bender will immediately recognize. Not me, of course. I’m just assuming.

Limitless, directed by Neil Burger from a book called The Dark Fields, didn’t garner a lot of buzz pre-release, but did surprisingly well as the only non-franchise, non-remake, non-reboot, non-sequel super-powered flick of the season. And for that, it deserves a look.

NOTE: Cooper, who also played Face in that neato A-Team movie last year, has just abandoned the Crow reboot. Word has it Mark Wahlberg is going to take over, because when you think brooding, sleek, lean, black-clad night-prowling vigilante, you think “Mark Wahlberg.” In makeup.