Review 325: Lucy

Lucy, a film about the   only uses 20% of its brian

 

was weird... but in some ways entertaining and surprisingly thoughtful sci fi action picture and in other a quite ambitious film from Writer/Director Luc Besson.

Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), a 25-year old woman who is living and studying in Taipei, Taiwan with her roommate Caroline (Analeigh Tipton) who unwittingly gets caught in drug trafficking and is forced to work as a drug mule for that mob. The drug implanted in her body inadvertently leaks into her system, changing her into a superhuman. She can absorb knowledge instantaneously, is able to move objects with her mind and can't feel pain and other discomforts.

The plot sounds earally similar to Limitless, but now that I've seen this film I can confirm that there's actually more to it than that, whereas Limitless was about the the ultimate fantasy, Lucy aims for a more scientific approach and deals with themes such knowledge and evolution and takes them into some very interesting directions-directions I honestly did not see coming and admire Luc Besson for taking them in the direction he did.

Knowledge: When the CPH4 enters Lucy's bloodstream, she begins to gain telepathic and telekinetic abilities and her brain becomes a memory bank where she can access any fact, whatever was or will be. She can also translate foreign languages into English as clearly demonstrated when she translates a neon sign for a hospital in Taiwanese into English.
Besson has described Lucy as being about us, our legacy/what we leave behind when we die and what we learn from good and bad experiences. In Lucy we see an idea of the unattainable, the possibilities of what could be if we could use 100% of our brain. But at the same time questioning what we would do with that knowledge. Knowledge has always been a funny thing, we all seek it but we don't think about we should do with it e.g. The Indiana Jones films.             

Evolution: As the film progresses, Lucy begins to unlock more and more of her brain and as a result she unlocks more of her brain enabling her gain more abilities, which make her more invulnerable.
She becomes kinda like how Neo was the Matrix Trilogy, in the first film, you really felt for him as a character and he was vulnerable to Agent Smith, but throughout the trilogy he grows more invulnerable so he virtually becomes an invincible superhero-which kinda makes her hard to root for.

Earlier in the film, Dr Norman (Morgan Freeman) is giving a lecture on the evolution of humans and animals and the possibilities of what could happen if we could access 100% of our brain and throughout the lecture we images of humans and animals - reproducing and  thematically I think if fits very well with the movie since it shows we as humans have evolved over time.

However at various points particularly towards the end, the movie gets really weird, both in terms of how Luc Besson writes and directs this film and it's tonal structure. First it's serious, then it's silly, then it's thoughtful, then it's action packed. As a result, this makes Lucy a film that only uses 50% of it's brain - that's quite an achievement.       

Writer/Director Luc Besson's direction is stylish, the cinematography is fantastic and captures the , the locations are terrific, the locations are splendid (the film takes us to countries such as Taipei, Taiwan and Paris, resulting in a different and overall very refreshing looking film than that of the usual American settings such New York, Miami and The Bahamas) the score by Erica Serra is exciting and in some ways unique. The production design is terrific, the costumes are stylish, the sound effects are effective, the action are intense, exciting and well choreographed.

The acting is mostly strong, Scarlett Johansson is definitely the highlight of this movie, she starts out scared and hard partying, in the scene where she's kidnapped by the villain Mr Jang (Choi Min-sik), she's completely petrified and not sure how she's gonna get out of the situation. In that scene I really felt her fear. When she gets the CPH4 she obviously becomes super intelligent and strong and it's great to watch that change of character - and see her kick butt. Her progress from going to a scared, hard partying girl to someone highly intelligent but also more stoic is both handled and performed extremely well. She has this vast arry of knowledge at her fingertips yet she doesn't know what to do with it. She looses the ability to empatheise, feel pain

I know we've seen Morgan Freeman play a doctor figure a million times - but he's very good at it and it's hard not to resist his charm. Samuel Norman has been teaching for a long time doing hypothersies on what would happen if we acess a larger portion of our brain.

Choi Min-sik is strong as Mr Jang, while the role is not very deep, there glimpses of his character paralleling Lucy, whereas she is the ultimate intelligence, Mr Jang is the ultimate devil and Min-sik portrays that quite well.

Amr Waked is just fine as Pierre Del Rio, a french policeman who teams up with Lucy. In a lot of ways Amr is our audience surrogate; he's litterly taken for a ride, just like us as an audience. He serves to remind Lucy of her  as Lucy has lost all emotions being exposed to the drug, he is emotional core the picture and in some ways helps settle the stuff that's happening in the picture on the audience's stomach.

Lucy is a film that is a lot smarter than initial looks would lead you to believe, but also a lot dumber than it thinks it is, 3.5/5

The Anonymous Critic.