"Lucy" Maximizes the Sci-Fi Genre to Near 100%

Rating: 9/10 (1 August 2014)

"Lucy" Maximizes the Sci-Fi Genre to Near 100%
Most of the best sci-fi movies are about ideas. The Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Fahrenheit 451, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Inception are examples of this. Then there are those sci-fi movies that have relied more on technology and special effects than ideas. (See Transformers.) However, when science fiction combines both ideas and technology, the genre can be one of the most entertaining in cinema. Lucy does just that.
The ideas in Lucy are no less universal than the purpose of life on this planet and what it means to be human. And like 2001, A Space Odyssey, the film offers no pat answers to these questions.
Lucy gets abducted by Japanese thugs in a fancy Taiwanese hotel and taken to a room where she meets their boss. The gangsters want to know what is in the case her now ex-boyfriend has cuffed to her left arm. Lucy doesn't know, but she learns later what she has.
Some critics question the fact that Japanese business men, mobsters really, don't speak English. The fact is, we don't know if they speak English. What we do know is that they refuse to speak English, and that makes Lucy even more frightened and the scene more foreboding as she is questioned by the criminals. Moreover, the lack of subtitles for the Japanese spoken in the scene helps us empathize with Lucy's situation; we don't know what is happening any more than she does.
Lucy isn't drawn out or overly mellow-dramatic. Scarlett Johansson does a good job as Lucy, a strange and multi-dimensional character even though we have little to no back-story for the character. That doesn't matter, for Lucy's motivation comes from the changes she goes through in the film.
Lucy is what good science fiction can be. It has action, philosophy, and big ideas. What surprises me are all the critiques of the science in Lucy, some from people who loved Inception, Transformers or The Edge of Tomorrow, films with even less plausible scientific under-pinnings. It's as if critics forgot what the phrase "science fiction" means. Movies are about suspending disbelief and being carried away. Lucy let's us do just that.
Lucy is not omnipotent like Neo of the Matrix films. She clearly does not have all the answers, and she doesn't have to. Her answers to her existence are more like Buddhist koans, not pronouncements of her divinity.
A friend told me that Johansson is charismatic, that the camera likes her. Wrong, I said, the camera loves her. And I am not just talking about her sultriness. In Lucy, she makes it easy to care about the enigmatic title character.
Morgan Freeman's Professor Norman is not as well developed. As we meet him, he is presenting a talk on neuroscience and his theories about the brain to a group in Paris. The talk is the weak spot in the movie, although the character of Norman improves as he interacts with Lucy.
One of the most contentious ideas in the film is that "we only use 10% of our brain." First, there is no evidence for this, and secondly, there is evidence that over a life-time, 100% of our brains get used, just not all at once. Perhaps the idea is that only 10% of our neurons can fire at one time. The film is not clear on that. I refer you to my earlier statement; it is science fiction.
If you can accept the idea that some people can better access their brain's capacity, i.e. Einstein, Kepler, Tesla, Hawking, and so forth, then it is not hard to accept the idea that perhaps there is more potential in the brain than we realize. Thus, we have Lucy. Bonus: The editing is excellent; it makes want me to become an editor of cinema. I will go out on a limb and say that Lucy will win the Oscar for best editing. The music is interesting but stays out of the way of the movie. Lucy reminds me in many ways of 2001: A Space Odyssey, especially toward the end of the film. After nearly 50 years, Kubrick's classic is still influencing cinema.
Weaknesses: Some of the dialogue is banal. Mostly, it doesn't get in the way of the ideas and action in the movie. Another irksome problem with the film is the lack of explanation of some plot elements, such as why Lucy was studying in Taiwan and how did she get into a jail cell after her kidnapping. A couple of well-placed lines of dialogue could have solved that issue. Rating: Pay full price; see it twice.
Lucy is not a perfect film, and I could nitpick and rate it down a bit. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the action and ideas and was not in any way put off by the imperfect science. It didn't drag on, it entertained me, and it left me thinking. That's what good science fiction is about.
Peace, Tex Shelters