Lucid Lucy

Rating: 7/10 (26 August 2014)

Highly watchable sci-fi/crime film with pretensions, which would make an intriguing double bill with "Under the skin". (Scarlet Johannseen uses her unearthly powers in a fairly negative way in "Under the skin but puts them to more socially acceptable use - ie killing a lot of bad guys - in "Lucy".) The sci-fi elements are more interesting than the crime elements, the latter consisting of Korean(?) drug pushers using naive foreign tourists as mules. As is the nature of these gangs, they have an inexhaustible supply of men, guns and bullets, coupled with an ability to storm public buildings, gunning down everyone in sight at the drop of a hat. No match for Lucy's mind-bending skills, however... The film goes a little transcendental towards the end, but its journey into oblivion includes a sequence in which the heroine experiences Times Square going back into time, ultimately revealing its earlier life as a primeval swamp. Fascinating stuff.