Black Widow is on drugs!

Rating: 6/10 (4 August 2014)

Quickie Review:
Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), is captured by a criminal group run by the crime lord Mr. Jang (Min-sik Choi). She is forced to be a drug mule for a new designer drug that accidentally leaks inside her. The overdose results in her unlocking 100% of her brain's capacity, becoming an unstoppable warrior intent on getting revenge. The concept of a person reaching super human level capabilities through some drug and then going all badass is intriguing for sure. Also Johansson is no stranger to being a badass in movies, so she plays well as the lead. The problem remains that the movie concentrates so much on delivering on the style that you'll not care for the little substance there is.
Full Review:
So, Limitless + Black Widow + Neo from The Matrix? Hell yea count me in! That triple threat combo is exactly what I thought when I first saw the trailers for Lucy, so you could imagine I was quite pumped to watch this movie. Unfortunately I underestimated the epicness of that combo and Johansson ends up being so overpowered that the whole sense of danger is taken out of the movie.
If you have seen the recent Marvel movies especially Captain America: Winter Soldier you know that Scarlett Johansson has proved to be a great action star. Lucy gave her the perfect opportunity to be the lead in her own action film, and she owns it for the most part. It was entertaining to see the sudden change from a vulnerable young woman to a methodical killer. The powers she has gradually increases over the duration of the movie, but about the half-way point it is abundantly clear that she has become a generic powerful killer. The power takes all the tension out of the action scenes because there is not going to be any real danger for you to care about. As for becoming an overly methodical killer, essentially all character is sucked out of Lucy and you are left with a emotionless robot that you can't relate to.
Director Luc Beeson is a very visual director, and that is the strength of this movie. All the action scenes are very well filmed. There are no cheap tricks like shacky cam, the shootings are all very well edited and paced. There is one car chase that is definitely one of the best in recent memory. So I must give credit to the visual style. There is one thing that Beeson tries that I think will get some mixed reactions. In the beginning few times some national geographic type clips of animals are shown to mirror what's happening in the movie. I personally found it to be interesting but then it's not used at all. It's as if Beeson lost all confidence in this experiment. Why do it with half effort? Either follow through or don't do it all.
Lucy is not a terrible movie, there are some things to enjoy. As a whole I wouldn't recommend paying full price to watch in cinema. Marvel, just give us a Black Widow movie!
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