Lucy, Lucy. It's me Desi, I'm home.

Rating: 3/10 (19 August 2014)

Spoiler Alert: Enjoy the movie first if you don't want to have your IQ increased by another's opinion.
Sometime back, there was a movie called Push about people with paranormal powers and gangs and government plots and whatever. Directed by Paul McGuigan, it attempted to mix Asian shoot-em-ups with Xmen enabled folks. It kind of worked and it kinda didn't.
I can't figure out for the live of me what is up with Johannson. I have to laud her for taking roles that aren't designed to favor any acting skill but then, maybe she only has a pretty face. Maybe disembodied is what she really likes to play but she can't find a good zombie vehicle,
This movie, like "Transcendence" tries to be a thinking man's film directed by Jackie Chan. The Chinese/Korean or amorphous Asian gang runs around popping caps with alarming disregard for anybody stopping them. OK, the French are a bunch of frog-eating pussies but they're just not as feckless as presented in this movie. French soldiers have been heroic and French angst is legendary.
This kind of movie would have worked better without the Asian gang and some real thoughtful examination from so called scholars who are about as inquisitive as a mosh pit participant. Luc Beeson is a talented director but none of that was on display here. This is comic book action, plot and dialog with a storyline that could have been really soul searching but since there are no souls, why search?
The scene where Lucy outlines the meaning of life and the unity of the universe is so badly acted that even Morgan Freeman's prodigious acting skills couldn't save the scene. WTF? Time, which doesn't really exist is the only thing that exists? Puleeeze! What universe are we living in? Oh wait, it's comics without the Valkyrie-like breastplate but with the terrors of a big brain. It's "Donovans Brain" or "The Brain From Planet Arous" but a brain inside of a delectable package. The brain is not all disembodied and yucky.
According to this movie, we only use 10% of our brain but if, by magic, we could access say 20% we could stop being Muggles. At 30% we could make other people act like puppets without strings. At 40% would could move inanimate objects around with ease.
But how to we get that brain working? Superspeed that is the same color as the crack cooked in Breaking Bad. The evil cartel has somehow got a bunch of this evil stuff and turns our hapless Lucy into a drug mule by sewing a packet of this super stuff into her body. Then one of the thugs decides it's a good idea to kick her in the stomach when she won't give him a blow job. The bag bursts and Lucy survives a massive drug overdose to become the smartest little hottie who can't drive since Cherry 2000. Oh wait, Lucy can't drive but in a nod to French director Claude Lalouch who hooked a camera onto a Ferrari and had a buddy, who happened to be a formula 1 driver, race at 140+ though the streets of Paris, she jumps behind the wheel and drives like a pro. And why does she do this? She does this because they are late. Oh My. The rabbit will not be the last.
OK, enough. In "Under the Skin," a previous non-acting role we at least get to see her nude. Here, we just get to see light come out of her mouth in what must have been a nod to "Coneheads."
Of course, at 100% of brain usage, she disappears and becomes one with everything after letting us know through images that everything happens at the same time and that there is no time which is the unifying factor in the universe according to ever so thoughtful Morgan Freeman.
The movie is lost in itself because neither the writer or director have any idea of the subject matter. It's not even speculative in the Sci-Fi sense and there's absolutely no drama in this drama. It's La Brea tarpitty kind of oozy stuff that supposedly is a new computer and it melts, gosh, everything while Lucy absorbs it all with the aplomb of a supermodel at a Hollywood party: Drunk and stoned but looking great.
M 3 At least the assistant to the Asian gang leader was entertaining. He had more facial expressions than a grueling tournament.