Luc Besson has made some great action films in the past two decades that span several genres. "The Fifth Element" in sci-fi, " La Femme Nikita" in the spy genre to name just two. LUCY falls somewhere far below those two hits.
Scarlett Johansson stars as our title character, an unwitting new girlfriend of a lowlife who dupes her into delivering a briefcase to a very powerful Japanese bad dude of some sort (like a lot of the film, the details are ignored in favor of momentum).
Soon, Lucy finds herself a non-voluntary mule for a new drug that expands the power of your brain in very small doses.
When she gets roughed up, the bag starts to leak and Lucy's brain is expanded to its full capacity.
Morgan Freeman is reliably good as a professor specializing in the capacity of the human brain. He's convenient in the story for us, so that he can expound in eloquent Morgan Freeman style about all the things we could do if we ever learned to use more than the 10% of our brain capacity that we use everyday.
As Lucy's brain power begins to rise quickly (announced by on screen idiot cards saying 20%....30%...) she gains control over all matter in the universe. Lucy can suddenly control every human being, matter itself, gravity, the works.
The first 45 minutes or so move so fast that they hold your interest, splashing enough violent confrontations now outside the normal physical limits of humans thanks to Lucy's abilities that they keep you guessing in a "what CAN'T she do!" fashion.
Unfortunately about halfway through, the script collapses into a traditional good guy v bad guy showdown. There are plenty of great, well executed car chases and shoot outs. No one will say Besson can't put on a show, but for the last half, you really have no stake in the characters and it becomes the equivalent of visual noise, bombarding you relentlessly but not leaving much of an impact.
Any film that can have our lead character bouncing around time and meeting an early ape-man while her office chair slides around Times Square gets points for something......
Even at a short 88 minutes, Lucy can't sustain it's early promise, morphing into a repetitive slog that pretends to be SO much smarter than it really is. Sorry Lucy, you may have evolved, but the script didnt. It gets a C.
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