Besson misses the mark by a mile. Lucy is a catastrophe.

Rating: 4/10 (1 December 2014)

CAUTION SPOILERS AHEAD!
After attempting to make it through Besson's plodding and seemingly dated and bland flick, 'The Family', a morbid curiosity pulled me towards Besson's latest flick sci-fi action vehicle, 'Lucy'. I had hoped the man who once brought us 'Leon' and 'The Fifth Element' would return to the big screen bringing a weird and fantastical science fiction film with him; however, he misses the mark, not by a forgivable amount, but by a mile. Lucy is a catastrophe.
The film begins with Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), being coerced by her new boyfriend into delivering a mysterious suitcase of what she believes to files to an unknown party located inside a hotel. What could go wrong? A lot apparently. The recipient turns out to be a ruthless Korean drug lord, played by the menacing Min-Sik Choi, who ends up slicing Lucy open and stuffing her full of the drug, 'CPH4′, in a bid to use her as a drug mule. Things go south after the drug leaks into Lucy's body and she begins to gain control of more than than 10% of her brain's capacity.
As Lucy's mental capacity grows, she gains the ability to scare dogs, see through trees, use multiple laptops at once and spook Morgan Freeman by adjusting his apartment lighting, all with her mind! By the time her mental capacity reaches 50% (or whatever it was, I was struggling to focus at this point), Besson breaches the bottom of the barrel and keeps scraping: Lucy now has the ability to extract memories by placing her thumbs on their forehead – Where can I find some of this magical drug?!
I would spoiler this but you probably wouldn't believe me, probably because you're an optimist; when she attains 100% control of her brain, Lucy turns into an organic computer, giving Morgan Freeman a USB stick with the entire history of the world before disintegrating into thin air (It must have been at least a 16gb stick to hold all that information). Unsurprisingly, Morgan Freeman and the other scientists in the room during the scene seemed to be just as perplexed as I was, though I'm not sure what I expected after watching Lucy randomly disintegrate on a flight mid-way through the movie, only to appear in fine in the next scene.
There is a unnecessarily liberal use of what seems like National Geographic stock footage throughout the film, such as a leopard catching its prey is jarringly inter-cut with Lucy being grabbed by the Korean mobsters, or footage of rhinos and other animals fornicating etc. Besson thinks he is creating some sort of grand metaphor or gesture, but this almost literal attempt just comes across as lame, stale and heavy handed. My eyes were continually viewing the back of head during these moments.
Johansson gives little life to her already wafer thin character. As usual, she is unable to emote or draw anything out of the viewer. Besson could have (and maybe he should have) replaced Johansson with a cardboard cutout, I'm sure he would have garnered a greater performance out of it, and perhaps been able to cut the budget in two. More often that not I thought Johansson was reading straight off a teleprompter, though in fairness to her, she wasn't given much to work with.
Morgan Freeman plays Morgan Freeman dressed as a scientist in his most phoned in performance yet. He is there purely to expel exposition for the audience. It is Min-Sik Choi who takes the cake. His take on a villainous Korean mobster, hellbent on killing Lucy and getting back his narcotics, is probably one of the few redeeming qualities of the film. His talent shows, but it is frivolously wasted here. I truly hope we see him in more films (check out 'I Saw the Devil' if you haven't already!)
Not only is an inherent suspension of belief necessary for viewing Lucy, you must take your brain out of your skull and continuously bash it with a baseball bat until it is in pieces (maybe set fire to the pieces just to be sure). The occasional dab of pretty cinematography here and there, and Min-Sik Choi's performance doesn't make up for this profoundly dumb and diluted glittery turd. If you want to see the corny '10% of our brains' premise, see Limitless. Avoid Lucy at all costs.
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