FilmSnobReviews

Title: Lucy
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Luc Besson
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Min-sil Choi, Morgan Freeman, and Amr Waked
Runtime: 1 Hr 30 Mins

What It Is: Lucy (Johansson) simply wants to go home after a night of partying, because she needs to study for her exams tomorrow. Unfortunately that’s not what’s in store for her when her boyfriend of only one week cuffs her to a suspicious briefcase and begs her to deliver the ‘paperwork’ he’s getting paid $1,000 for. Lucy doesn’t know what’s in store for her, nor does she fully understand what is in the briefcase cuffed to her wrist, but when she’s taken hostage by Mr. Jang (Choi) she knows it’s not good. “Please don’t kill me,” she begs Mr. Jang at one point. He doesn’t kill her and that’s his mistake.

What We Think:  Just by taking a first look at the trailer, I thought Lucy would be something like Neil Burger’s ‘Limitless’.  Surprisingly Besson had started his research for Lucy nearly ten years before Burger’s film. Lucy explores different theories about what could happen when a human reaches one hundred cerebral capacity. First is the control over one’s self, then the control of others, next is the control of matter, and finally the ability to control time, which in Lucy time is what holds everything together. Of course the sentence ‘humans only use ten percent of their brains’ is a lie, but in reality we only have fifteen percent of our neurons active at any given moment. I was happy with Lucy’s special effects, and the way Johansson carried the character. As a single unit the film was good, but it must be kept in mind that Lucy’s abilities are theoretical so as to not keep confronting yourself over the small details.

Our Grade: C+ Because, really, after thinking about how Kitty Pryde’s DNA allows her body to rearrange it’s atoms to pass through the space in between that of other matter’s atoms, it’s not too hard to accept Lucy’s own abilities. However speaking in terms of the human condition, some of the theories in Lucy go a little too far, but Besson acknowledged it and mentioned it was his intention. My biggest problem with Lucy was that I never really got an answer at the end of the film, I was left wondering what happened before the beginning after Lucy takes us through a black hole. All we’re left with in the end is a flash drive, but then again when will we truly, genuinely ever know about the moment before the first existence of matter?