How do you like this Terrence Malick?

Rating: 8/10 (26 October 2014)

Oddly enough, the best film that "Lucy" can be compared to is Terrence Malick's 2011 film, "The Tree of Life". I know with confidence that every person's initial reaction to that statement would be a confused question, for two reasons. The first being that you probably haven't seen or even heard of that movie. The second reason being that if you have seen that movie, you think there is no way this action flick starring superstar Scarlett Johansson could be in the least bit similar. "Lucy" is a film about an ordinary young woman who unintentionally gets caught up in a drug deal with a sinister Korean gang. After being transported bearing a precious package, Lucy undergoes a phenomenon which allows her to gradually access more and more of her brain capacity, ultimately rendering her a superhuman.
Scarlett Johansson of course stars as the title character Lucy. The character choices Johansson was required to make were extremely difficult, as she was having to invent a kind of person whom we have zero insight as to how they may be. Some of her choices I did question at times, but they were her choices to make, and in the end they played well. Morgan Freeman also co-starred in the role of Morgan Freeman. His character was some sort of scientist whose name I've easily forgotten, but in reality that's the only role Morgan Freeman seems to play anymore: himself. It's not great for telling a story, but it works, because the world likes him. A lot. Min-Sik Choi and Amr Waked took the only other parts of any significance, but truthfully the characters in this movie made zero difference to the final result of this film. Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" came to the world with a very limited release in 2011, and for a good reason. After seeing the film, the distributors realized that what they hand in their hands was something that is only going to work for a certain type of people. The reason for this being that in this film Malick let his thoughts, emotions, and imagination run wild. There wasn't a story told, there was a message spoken, and that message was about life. Casual moviegoers who saw this film only because Brad Pitt's name was on it immediately hated it because it ventured past where they wanted to go. Most filmmakers and film enthusiasts who saw, however, fell in love with these visions Malick had and somehow put onto the screen. It's the strangest thing, but this movie was the same way for director Luc Besson. This film is clearly something that had been on the mind of Besson for a long, long time. His thoughts about evolution, time, space, human capabilities, and our purpose overflowed in this film in the most beautiful way. When the movie started I expected to see Scarlett Johansson riding a motorcycle being chased by some drug lords with machine guns, not a visual analysis of human evolution and why we do what we do with a beautifully unique score playing behind it. Initially, it took me a while to adjust because from the way it was marketed I didn't know this is what I was getting. But after I came to that realization, I started smiling. My favorite part of this film has to be how we were allowed to see into the imagination of Luc Besson, and how he translated that onto the screen. The visuals in this film were absolutely outstanding, providing a legitimate feast for the eyes. From the animation of the electrical anatomy of the human body, and the visualization of cellular and radio waves, to a perfectly written and choreographed travel through time. There's a brief sequence in this movie where Besson creates a time lapse where we see in reverse the construction of Times Square in New York. This moment sent me to the edge of my seat with genuine excitement. The entire movie provides instances of extraordinary visualizations, which in the end makes the film as good as it is. My only recommendation for this movie is to not expect what the film's advertisements say this movie is going to give. As an action flick this movie falls very short. It has the formula car chase, and one or two scenes where we get to see Johansson kick some butt, but overall there really is not much action. There is also very little story to this film, which is perhaps the biggest surprise of all. If this is realized though, there is only one thing about this movie that remains undesirable. The length. Just as film reaches its ultimate climax that it has been hinting at for the entire 90 minutes, it ends. I have never come to a conclusion whether or not it's a good thing for a movie to leave you wanting more, but here I felt the problem was instead that it didn't give you enough. So as I walked out of the theater, the credits had finished and I still wanted to stay. I give "Lucy" an 8.0/10.