Looking at: Lucy

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10% Juice

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One of the powers Lucy gains is the ability to visualize data flow. It's a weird movie.

The first thing you need to understand to like Lucy is that the science is not the point. There's been much to do about it's concept of a person gaining more then 10% of their brain power, based on the idea that humans only use 10% of their brains. This fact is blatantly wrong, and has been for some time. But Lucy doesn't care, and it plows along headfirst with this as it's power source. It's destination? Fucking weird.

Luc Besson is probably one of the best action directors to come out of France, with films like Leon the Professional, The Transporter series, and The Fifth Element under his belt. He's also a pretty weird dude and Lucy seems like a movie that only he could make. It's a weird mix of science, action, visual metephors, strange characters, and just the right level of crazy to actually kind of work.

Shanghaied

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If I didn't know how to control my powers, I'd probably turn to Morgan Freeman too.

The story concerns the titular character of Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), a young American grad student in Taipei. She gets the short end of a shitty deal, delivers drugs to Mr. Jang (Min-sik Choi), a psychotically violent crime lord. Jang takes a liking to Lucy and decides to use her as a mule for this new drug. A baggie of the drugs is stuck in her stomach and she's sent on her way. After an unfortunate encounter with some thugs the drugs enter her blood stream and begin changing her.

See, the drug is called CPH14. This is what a mother's body gives to babies to get the cells to begin growing. The amount that Lucy ingests begins to slowly unlocking more and more of her brain. She turns into a female combination of Abed from Community and Dr. Manhatten from Watchmen, slowly loosing her humanity, at one point literally, as she becomes more and more powerful.

Lucy contacts Samuel Norman (Morgan Freeman), who's been researching the higher use of the brain. He tells her that it's her duty to pass on the information she's gathered, and she agrees, contacting French detective Del Rio (Amr Waked) to help her out.

That's the best summary of the plot I can do, since in actuality it's pretty convoluted. The film constantly wanders back and forth between hard-hitting science fiction, old school science fact, and balls out action thriller. It is interesting to watch Lucy slowly change, gaining new powers while becoming less human, but only if you can ignore the bullshit surrounding it.

Her.

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Eventually she evolves past the need for guns, but they still serve a purpose. It's a weird movie.

What doesn't change throughout the movie is Scarlett Johansson's performance, which is great. Like I said, the best part is watching Lucy slowly transform, and ScrJo sells the hell out of it, delivering perfect amounts of nonchalant-ness where necessary, while still bringing humanity to the character in rare moments of clarity. This ain't no Black Widow, and it's a pleasant reminder that she really is a great actress.

Equally great is Morgan Freeman, who's always seemed well suited for the role of a learned man. I don't really need to explain why he's so good, just watch any movie where Morgan Freeman is a man of intelligence and you'll see why. He exudes class and intelligence, even when he's struggling to understand and comprehend what's happening.

Min-sik Choi and Amr Waked are decent in their more action-oriented roles in Lucy. Choi in particular comes across great as a classy, but brutal crime lord, capable of great pain. Waked is decent, and he's a good support for Lucy as a detective way over his head.

As great as the performances is the camera work. I always go out of my way to applaud action movies that don't use shaky cam, and here the camera work is top notch. This isn't really a surprise considering DP Thierry Arbogast is the same guy behind Leon the Professional and Fifth Element.

What's really strange is some of the editing choices, especially during the first section of the movie. I hesitate to call what Lucy uses "visual metaphors" since metaphors usually require some brain work to figure out. Rather, it regularly pauses the movie entirely to cut in National Geographic footage to support what it just said. Literally, Morgan Freeman will be talking, then the movie will cut to some footage of gazelles running or rhinos having sex. It's a strange editing choice, and I'm not sure if it worked as well as they were hoping.

Weird Science. 

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ScarJo, proving once again that she might be one of the best female action stars around.

Lucy is, at best, a dumb movie trying to act smart. Like I said, to enjoy it at all you really have to ignore the fact that it's base fact is false, and just sort of run with it. It's plot wanders and is pretty hard to follow, but some great performances and well done action scenes make this a movie worth watching, even if it isn't based on good science.