"the best of" kick-ass (maybe straight-ahead, but maybe tongue-in-cheek)

Rating: 8/10 (2 August 2014)

"Lucy" is worth seeing on the big screen. Probably it's a straight-ahead "summer" movie which could be (awkwardly) categorized as an action thriller ...or maybe it's an attempt to break new ground ...or maybe it's a massive tongue-in-cheek send-up of current multiplex fare. Although it has sci-fi elements, focusing too much on the sci-fi aspect will be disappointing. It's a bit more thoughtful than most "action thrillers", but just a bit; certainly it's not something to look forward to sinking your intellectual teeth into.
It's reminiscent of many other films. Some that come to mind are "Fantastic Voyage", "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Tron" (the original one), "Chunking Express" (the first half), "Baraka", "The Matrix", "The Tree of Life" (the abstract part), and "Home". Originality isn't the point - taking good ideas (sometimes even actual footage) from lots of places and pushing them even further is.
Before going on, let me directly address the premise that "we only use 10% of our brains". In a completely objective world, this idea would be no sillier than the idea of telepathically controlling a suit of armor which projects force fields. But, probably because of the history of the 10% idea, right now many people recoil from it. Don't. Leave your scientific/analytic hat at home. If you insist on getting hung up on the "un-reality" of the 10% idea, you're certain to not enjoy this film. (The film even jokes a bit with this idea, labeling a U.S. college student studying abroad as using not "10%" of her brain power but only "1%":-)
I understand why many professional reviews are tepid. The science is somewhere between implausible and laughable. The philosophy is sophomoric. And the ending can feel unsatisfying, even abrupt. That's partly because the logic motivating the sequence of events, even though actually quite simplistic, can be hard to follow on the first viewing. And it's partly because it's pretty hard to ratchet the "climax" even higher when the volume has already been up all the way to 10 for so long. In other words, judged only by small-screen criteria, the movie is indeed mediocre. It doesn't help either that the movie doesn't fit all that neatly into any existing "genre", so professional reviewers are uncertain what to do with it.
The acting is first-rate. It's not just pretty faces; the characters are engrossing. The main character's development from quite emotional at the beginning to completely flat at the end comes through very well. It might sound like a downer that for the lead role Angelina Jolie was replaced by Scarlett Johansson. In fact it was most likely an improvement. One's reaction to Jolie kicking ass might have been "again?", but when Johansson kicks ass one really sits up and takes notice. The technical aspects of the shooting must have been outrageous: there are some outdoor scenes that appear to move far beyond any imaginable boundaries of a "location" or "set"; some perspective shots that make you think you're either flying or high; there's excellent wire work where you'd never expect it; and it's quite difficult to separate what's a stunt, an in-camera trick., compositing, CGI-enhanced, or full CGI (for example the outrageous car crashes that you would think must be CGI are in fact stunts).
But where the movie really shines is as a visual spectacle (or perhaps as a primo example of "style"). Go with the same mindset you'd use to watch a movie with cartoon characters in a cartoon story. Hang loose. And just let the images wash over you.
There's some of the best nature photography I've seen. There's plenty of blood and gun-fu and random deaths (but that's not the whole movie). The extended car chase scene is the wildest I've ever seen bar none. There's simulated micro-photography (things like cells dividing). And there's simulated macro-photography (things like interplanetary nebulae). There are shots inside airplanes that quickly switch from things you've always dreamed of to matter disintegration. There's improbable mixing of different contexts (for example a woman in a black dress sitting in an office chair, which in turn is hovering on the surface of a swamp). There's an epic battle inside the Sorbonne. There's wide scenic vistas. There are famous landmarks. Time sometimes speeds up, and sometimes slows down, and sometimes runs backward, showing us both fully realized cityscapes a hundred years ago and the birth of the earth and moon. And so much more. And the extremely rapid editing shoehorns all of it into less than two hours.
I admit I had to see it twice to fully grasp it. The first time the story was a bit jumbled, and just letting all the fantastic images wash over me was everything. The second time though the story was fully coherent (if rather simplistic). My suggestions are to use all the movie and TV reading skills you've got, and to not look too deeply for a complex story or philosophy. And if you still don't "get" the story, don't worry about it, just sit back and enjoy the visuals.