Lucy
Directed by: Luc Besson
Written by: Luc Besson
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Choi Min-Sik, Amr Waked, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Pilou Asbæk, Analeigh Tipton, Nicolas Phongpheth, Jan Oliver Schroeder, Luca Angeletti
Action/Sci-Fi - 90 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 23 July 2014
Written by: Luc Besson
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Choi Min-Sik, Amr Waked, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Pilou Asbæk, Analeigh Tipton, Nicolas Phongpheth, Jan Oliver Schroeder, Luca Angeletti
Action/Sci-Fi - 90 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 23 July 2014
The notion that we humans only use 10% of our brains has already been myth busted. There are no empty regions in our brain to turn on; the entire organ persistently works all the time. The tantalizing idea that we may increase our intellect by unlocking new brain sectors is an effective foundation for Lucy, Luc Besson’s new science fiction/action film. The idea remains intriguing even though Limitless covered strikingly similar territory in 2011, even employing the same unlocking mechanism, drugs. Even though Besson plays around with an adequate concept, the way he approaches it does not work and makes Lucy a ridiculous exercise in high-minded abstractions mired in the mud of mundane shoot outs.
Lucy (Scarlett Johansson, 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier) is another addition in an impressive showcase of Besson female action heroes. There was La Femme Nikita (1990), Mathilda from The Professional (1994), and Leeloo from The Fifth Element (1997). Besson is one of the very few filmmakers who recognize female action heroes are just as interesting as their male counterparts. Lucy does not begin as a hero though; she is an oblivious party girl in Taipei who uses 1% of her brain as the screen title informs us. She unwillingly gets involved with the Korean mob who kidnap her, implant a bag of new high-end drugs in her stomach, and plan to use her as a mule to smuggle them into the U.S. After the bag o’ drugs accidentally bursts and floods her system with the powder does Lucy’s brain start leaping forward in percentages as the screen takes time to show us flashcards of 10%, 20%, and so on.
Lucy (Scarlett Johansson, 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier) is another addition in an impressive showcase of Besson female action heroes. There was La Femme Nikita (1990), Mathilda from The Professional (1994), and Leeloo from The Fifth Element (1997). Besson is one of the very few filmmakers who recognize female action heroes are just as interesting as their male counterparts. Lucy does not begin as a hero though; she is an oblivious party girl in Taipei who uses 1% of her brain as the screen title informs us. She unwillingly gets involved with the Korean mob who kidnap her, implant a bag of new high-end drugs in her stomach, and plan to use her as a mule to smuggle them into the U.S. After the bag o’ drugs accidentally bursts and floods her system with the powder does Lucy’s brain start leaping forward in percentages as the screen takes time to show us flashcards of 10%, 20%, and so on.
Lucy learns Chinese in an hour, sees radio waves, starts to read minds, and employs telekinesis without a care in the world. She makes Stephen King’s Carrie look like a rank amateur. Besson makes films that are strictly guns and ammo. Lucy veers into some very deep philosophy and touches on just about every science yet discovered. What does not work is the combination of these high-minded sciences and the Asian gangbangers waving their pistols around chasing down Lucy to get their drugs back. Lucy hints at universal truths and the answers to all of our questions yet the film chooses to stay planted on the ground and ignore anything that may have separated Lucy from the rest of the ‘things go boom’ pack.
Morgan Freeman (2014’s Transcendence) is along for the ride and plays another world renowned, tip-of-the-spear scientist, a neurologist this time. Freeman is typecast in these roles most likely because he can command our attention while presenting a PowerPoint on brain facts. Scenes featuring Johansson and Freeman are edited back and forth with each other for the first half hour. Freeman will describe cell functionality and then we’ll see Johansson act out whatever it is he is talking about at the moment. Besson also includes some tongue in cheek moments such as when Lucy is first captured the movie cuts to a nature scene of a cheetah attacking and killing an antelope.
The bad guy, Mr. Jang (Choi Min-Sik), is an amoral mob boss who employs extreme violence as a business model. He chases Lucy all over the globe but he and his henchmen never feel like viable threats, especially when Lucy starts to disarm them with her brain. Choi Min-Sik is one of South Korea’s most recognizable actors from Oldboy (2003) and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005) but exactly why a global Korean mob racket is based in Taipei is never explained. Globalization is a central theme though as the four major characters are Caucasian, African-American, Korean, and Egyptian as they jet from Taipei to Paris.
In Paris, there is a much too obvious juxtaposition of everything wrong with Lucy as the final gunfight takes place in the Sorbonne with statues of famous intellectuals obliterated by bullets. It is just another reminder of what could have been. Shockingly, it is not even the most overt comparison. In a brief opening segue, Morgan Freeman explains the world’s oldest recognizable woman fossil is named Lucy. She is the maternal ancestor to us all. 2014 Lucy is the first woman to leave her ‘self’ and discover what remains hidden to those of us with 10% brains. Think there will be a shot of them side by side? Good answer.
Johansson’s Lucy undergoes an alternate metamorphosis, from animated to subdued, crass to stoic. In film, the emotional transformation is usually the other way around. Mind-enhanced Lucy is quite similar to Johansson’s unnamed alien in Under the Skin. They lack emotion, their eyes remain focused in penetrating stares, and they frequently encounter situations as if seeing them for the first time.
Lucy’s consciousness transcends her physical body and explores the galaxy but instead of untapped universal knowledge, the audience is saddled with monotonous pistols and pure science fiction garbled with B-movie action. These genres are oil and water when it comes to the level of wonder and discovery Besson seeks to achieve.
Comment Box is loading comments...
