I just discovered this thread. I don't know if you've seen the movie yet, but if you avoided seeing it for the reasons you mentioned here, I would recommend actually watching it. Especially this one:
I'm sure the protagonist of Limitless will learn humility and either return to his original life or a slightly shinier version thereof or die in a tragic self-sacrifice, rather than changing the world, because it's not a story about changing the world.
It's a bit more imaginative than that.
I noticed--I was very surprised indeed. (I also appreciated the "I can't think my way out of a knife!" bit--the power of intelligence, indeed.) It's more unambiguously positive than the original ending, even--definitely not what I was expecting. This kind of story is inevitably going to end up being about someone who changes the whole world, and hey, that's what the movie fades out on. I'm impressed.
Limitless is a movie coming out this Friday which includes nootropics as a major plot device. I think that the way they are portrayed in the movie, and the subsequent media discussion (if any) about nootropics would be of interest here, even if the movie isn't.
From what I can tell, the movie is about a guy who uses a drug to improve his mental capabilities, uses those to radically alter his life, who is then targeted because its just that genre of movie.
Just a heads up, if anyone is interested.