Even if you suspend disbelief, it's still ridiculous

Rating: 3/10 (10 April 2016)

The reviews here seem to fall into two camps: Those that point out the flaw of using the old 10-percent of your brain myth, saying this inanity makes the movie bad; and those that say never mind reality, this is sci-fi, so relax and enjoy the ride. The problem is that even if it were true that we only use a small amount of our brain capacity, the storyline here still wouldn't make sense. And it keeps piling more nonsense on top of nonsense. Science fiction comes in all flavors of realism, from "hard" science fiction that sticks to the technically possible, to what is really fantasy, like The Fifth Element, where science is really tossed out the window and the movie is just cool and fun. What doesn't work, and what makes Lucy not fun at all, is when a movie tries to present a scientificky undercurrent to the idea but then fails miserably at sticking to its rules. So, consider the following: Why would increasing your brain's abilities give you superhuman powers that extend to breaking the laws of physics? We have way more brainpower than, say, a clam, but we're no more capable than it of defying gravity (except by application of technology that obeys physics). Why would a woman with increased brainpower be so stupid as to leave her nemesis alive, pinned to his chair with knives, rather than just killing him? Why would your brain powers lead you to start disintegrating in an airplane bathroom (and by the way, whatever happened after that? We just see her wake up solid again in the hospital). The brain-capacity fallacy is not the only big science blunder in the film. Its concept of evolution would have Darwin spinning in his grave. Cells do not pass on information they have "learned," they pass on information they have acquired by mutation and DNA recombination. The notion that cells in a "safe environment" survive by immortality is way out of left field. The bottom line is, the brain-capacity crap is simply used here as an excuse to give Scarlett Johannsen superpowers. The weak and questionable philosophical message (We can become gods if we apply ourselves? Hard to say)is buried beneath mindless violence and weird special effects.