Besson's latest concept actioner goes the abstract, philosophical route

Rating: 6/10 (30 November 2014)

For the last decade, Luc Besson has been among the most reliable producers, writers and directors making thrilling, mindless entertainment, which makes "Lucy," a film about a woman accessing 100 percent of her brain capacity, somewhat ironic. In all seriousness, however, "Lucy" is a departure from the filmmaker's gritty, revenge-driven track record of late, though not necessarily a noticeable improvement.
Like most of Besson's films, "Lucy" is a straightforward, concept-driven action movie: Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), an American in Taiwan, gets kidnapped by a wealthy organized crime boss (Min-sik Choi, of "Oldboy" fame) who stuffs a package of a new synthetic drug in her body for smuggling purposes, but the plan takes a turn when the package ruptures and Lucy begins experiencing its mind-enhancing effects. Consuming knowledge and experience cell growth at an unprecedented rate, she seeks to turn the tables on her captors.
But while "Lucy" is a pretty clear-cut concept, the plot is rather messy. As Lucy begins to unlock more and more of her brain and power, she understandably becomes more than just revenge- driven and becomes obsessed with sharing her knowledge with Professor Norman (Morgan Freeman). The script ends up being 50 percent philosophical and theory-based, and it seems Besson is more fascinated with this idea of humans accessing their full brain capacity and what we would learn about our existence than he is with crafting a compelling story.
What results is a film that talks an interesting and intelligent game but plays out in somewhat dumb fashion. In other words, "Lucy" is easily the most thought-provoking film Besson has made in the last 10 years at least, but it ranks behind many of those recent films in terms of being a compelling watch. Eventually, the concept of what's happening to Lucy's brain flies off the handle and we can no longer understand the science or theory behind it. The movie gets abstract and flat-out trippy in a way we haven't seen from Besson since "The Fifth Element." At times you have to wonder if he was watching too much Terrence Malick when he made this one.
Johansson, of course, makes for an eternally watchable leading lady. Even when Besson injects a few emotion-driven moments that feel completely out of place, she makes the most out of them, as if somewhere inside the hollow vessel of her character is a multi-dimensional person. Even the casting of Freeman as the professor, who exists exclusively to explain what's happening to Lucy, adds a certain legitimacy to the film
To Besson's credit, he manages to create enough thought-provoking moments to make "Lucy" feel like a smart and unique film. There are some big ideas within this concept and though he mostly scratches the surface, he manages to create enough of a hook to pull the audience into the movie. Although it plays out so differently compared to films like "Taken" and "The Transporter" series, Besson again proves to be innovative as far as surface-level entertainment goes.
It's also tremendously helpful that "Lucy," like most of Besson's films, is short. At less than 90 minutes, it doesn't toil about long enough to let its faults drag it down. For everything it's missing, it's still efficient. That's the kind of low-risk approach that most flawed movies could stand to benefit from and that Besson had proved time and time again to be pretty reliable in delivering.
~Steven C
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