Scar Jo's entire performance summed up in one screen cap.
Luc Besson’s mildly entertaining “Lucy” is part B action
movie and part high concept science fiction about the potential of the human
brain. It stars the sexy doe eyed Scarlett Johansson as the titular character
Lucy, a young naïve American in China who gets caught up in some shady
underworld dealings.
Without boring you with too much plot detail Lucy gets
selected as a drug mule for a new drug (a synthetic version of the drug CPH4 which
allows someone to use more than ten percent of their brain) and through certain
circumstances a large dose of it gets into her body and before long she’s able
to harness up to one hundred percent of her cranium. Johansson—who’s been on a
roll acting-wise of late, in films like “Under the Skin” and “Her”—gives a perfectly
fine performance, though nothing spectacular.
It ranges from huffy and panicky (at the beginning) to
robotic and wide-eyed. Seriously, Johansson does a lot of intense staring, you
know, because she’s super smart and focused all the time. She does have moments
of greatness, like the moments when she’s trying to cope with her newfound
abilities and understand them, while slowly losing her humanness.
And this is where “Lucy” is most intriguing. The screenplay
by Besson addresses some extremely interesting themes and concepts related to
brainpower and human biology. Basically the main theory he puts forth
is—delivered by Morgan Freeman as a brain scientist in the form of a Parisian
university lecture—that in our current state as humans, we create obstacles for
ourselves, obstacles in the form of fear, pain, anxiety, etc. (pretty much all
human emotions and qualities) thereby limiting ourselves and our full
potential. Being exposed to this drug has caused Lucy to eliminate those
obstacles, which is great on the one hand but on the other she loses her
humanness. She can’t feel pain or fear, hence Johansson’s robotic performance. It’s
a fascinating concept and the greater concept of using more than ten percent of
your brain (and the multiple ways it can be explored on screen) is even more
fascinating and I can’t help but feel in the hands of a different director
(someone like Christopher Nolan) a great sci fi movie could be made. Would it
be a good thing for humanity to use one hundred percent of the brain? Would
human life and interaction, as we know it cease to exist?
All of these
questions and more are endlessly fascinating. Unfortunately, as interesting as
“Lucy” may be, Besson doesn’t really try to answer them in a very compelling
way and instead decides to wrap the picture in a derivative B-movie blanket
that smothers the picture’s potential to be truly memorable. Lucy essentially
turns into another super gal; you can bet that she acquires fist-fighting
skills and eventually gets so smart that she can control other humans and
matter with her mind. And of course, since this is about an illegal drug, there
are a of generic Chinese gangsters and a forgettable French police officer that
aids her. Besson’s movie is a peculiar amalgamation of genres; there’s some
“Jason Bourne” in there, along with “The Matrix” and a dash of “ The Tree of
Life.” That Terrence Malick art film? Yep, that’s the one.
Not that there aren’t any mild B-movie pleasures to still be
found. At eighty-nine minutes “Lucy” doesn’t wear out its welcome and Besson
keeps the picture moving at a fast pace. Not only that, Besson has some fun with
it, the overall tone switching from intense drama/action to sheer goofiness.
The way Lucy casually and apathetically kills people or reads and comprehends
hundreds of hours of research and data in a matter of seconds, for example.
Consequently, this does prevent the audience from really caring about any of
the characters but it also makes the movie fun in a pulpy action movie kind of
way. As it is, had the film taken itself completely serious it would have been
a bust.
C+
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