Silly, but not boring.

Rating: 6/10 (23 February 2019)

Writer / director Luc Besson is determined here to give us superhero-styled escapism stemming from some provocative ideas. The theme is that human beings really only use about 10% of their brains' full potential. So what if someone were able to tap into the other 90%? What would that person be able to do? What would they be like?
Scarlett Johansson plays the title role, an ordinary average gal roped into an untenable situation by a guy she barely knows: deliver a mysterious briefcase to a Korean mobster named Mr. Jang (Min-sik Choi). The contents consist of a synthetic drug that supposedly allows users to tap into that aforementioned 90%. It's inserted into her system, and she becomes a rapidly evolving super-human who turns to an eminent professor (Morgan Freeman) and a badass cop (Amr Waked) for help.
Ultimately, it's pure fantasy & fiction, and this viewer certainly wasn't expecting anything resembling a documentary. It's very fast paced (clocking in at a mere hour and a half), action-packed, over the top, and ridiculous as all-get-out. Nevertheless, it's fairly amusing on that level, with some violence & gore, and a plethora of digital effects work.
Scarlett is easy to watch, as always, and her performance can be monotonous at times, but generally it's entertaining. Freeman again projects effortless quiet authority as the films' requisite brain science expert. Choi is a hoot as the unrelenting villain, and Waked is good as he injects a little dose of humanity into the proceedings.
All in all, this is something of a hoot, one that doesn't require the prospective viewer to work their own brains that hard.
Six out of 10.