Lucy (2014)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on July 29, 2014 @ tonymacklin.net.

Lucy takes us on giddy flights of fancy.

It's a taut, wild 89 minutes. Lucy is a lark. And a rhino, a chimp, and a star-computer.

In Taiwan, Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) becomes a drug mule, the package breaks inside her body, and she is flooded by WTF4, which gives her super powers. As the drug increases both her brain power and physical prowess, her actions become more and more outlandish.

And so, too, do those of her legions of adversaries. It makes for a merry melee.

Lecturer Samuel Norman (Morgan Freeman) pontificates the basic premise of Lucy. He says that the average person uses only 10% of his cerebral capacity. That's pseudo science, because we know for a fact that people use far less than 10%.

Lucy is a mindless movie about intelligence. Take that, Creationism.

Lucy is everywhere, so the character needs an omnipresent actress. Scarlett Johansson also is everywhere; in 2014 she's already appeared in a multitude of movies. One sometimes wonders whether she may be James Franco in drag.

Scarlett has that nifty combination of steel and rubber. She's lethal and vulnerable. She's an established - over-established - actress. I think Mackenzie Davis would be a more daring, intriguing, and equally-deft choice. But she's basically unknown.

Writer-director Luc Besson makes sure his film is constantly careening. That's why the three questioners at the lecture are out of place and so dull. They don't machine-gun Morgan. Don't slow down, Luc.

Lucy becomes Road Runner, and the rest of the world is Wile E. Coyote. It's more about cels than cells.

The movie is trippy. It's Lucy in the Sky with Dimwits.

The mind is a terrible thing to waste. In Lucy, the mind is a wonderful thing to abuse.