Synopsis
Luc Besson’s film about a young woman Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) who is set up by her boyfriend to deliver what turns out to be brain enhancing chemicals to a Chinese gang lord. She is implanted with these chemicals as a dry mule but she develops her brain’s use from 10% (we allegedly only use that amount of our brain power) to 100%. She becomes an avenger as her superpowers sort out the world, bringing the other implant victims to the police dealing with the gangsters and academies in Paris. What happens when she reaches 100%?
Review
A silly caper movie which copies Bradley Cooper’s Limitless but with zonkier special effects. Lucy means ‘light’ of course, so she is due to achieve mystical transcendence, right? The trouble is, that her superpowers are so exaggerated that they pre-emptively deny the plot, she can have no serious rivals or competittors. The special effects try to cover up for lack of dramatic tension. She outstrips all the superheroes. This seems to go the way of Johansson’s other recent films, Her and Under the Skin. In those films she was grappling with being human, here she’s transcending it as she zips around time and place. She meets Native Americans and dinosaurs, and the original Lucy our supposed hominid ancestors. It all gets a bit ‘Terence Mallick’ until we realize we’re watching another deft sci-fi vehicle a la Nicholas Cage. Brain enhancement ought to be an opportunity for satire at the expense of fallen humanity’s follies like The Man Who Fell to Earth, but she only seems to amplify them as she doesn’t hesitate needlessly to kill people. Morgan Freeman is the professor who tells us about 10% brain use and he does it so ponderously there seems to be a danger of his using only 5% of his brainpower. This being a Besson film there are sumptuous visuals but it’s like a computer commercial, somebody sponsoring glossy dreck.
jkinsleyfilm 