Entertaining hogwash

Rating: 7/10 (26 July 2015)

For a film predicated on an oft-repeated (and debunked) popular myth, LUCY is pretty entertaining, if a little ridiculous. Scarlett Johansson plays Lucy, a young woman is pulled into being a drug mule. However, interesting things start happening to her when the drug leaks into her system. Among the complaints one could lodge against LUCY, the biggest one is how thinly written the whole thing is. We are given precious little information about Lucy, and most of the other characters don't do much but further the plot along or provide exposition. Morgan Freeman is probably the most interesting of these, a scientist/professor whose field of research happens to coincide with what Lucy is experiencing. Still, the film seems to be aware of this and wastes no time in getting to the point. It follows a very fast pace, and it becomes almost a game to guess what powers Lucy will access as her cerebral capacity gets closer to 100%. There's also some real-life footage of animals and cool visual effects sequences of cells dividing and cosmic-level events which one will either take as profound or pretentious. I took it as somewhere in between, but leaning more towards the latter. I didn't really get the feeling that the film was going for a particular message, but the idea that wonder is part of what makes us human is an interesting one, as Lucy becomes less human the more knowledge and brain power she acquires. There also seemed to be the idea that knowledge makes us god-like. Altogether, it waxed fairly philosophical for an action film with a threadbare plot. Time will only tell whether or not I really love it, but for now I'm content in saying I liked LUCY a lot. Luc Besson's films have never been known for being particularly deep, but he seemed to be having a lot of fun here creating something that does make you think a little, even if it's based on an incorrect idea. For all it lacks in plot or story, LUCY has plenty of gumption when it comes to philosophical and visual ideas.