Mind Over Matter

Rating: 5/10 (27 July 2014)

Greetings again from the darkness. Writer/Director Luc Besson has a track record of mixing stylistic visuals with more traditional action: La Femme Nikita, Leon: The Professional, The Fifth Element. This time he tries to mix those components with fantasy, sci-fi and neuroscience. His hope was that Scarlett Johannson in a snug t-shirt and Morgan Freeman as an on screen narrator would sufficiently distract viewers from the intercontinental drug-muling mess.
We have all fantasized about expanded brain power, and many films have touched on this: Transcendence (Johnny Depp), The Matrix franchise, and Limitless (Bradley Cooper) to name a few. Omnipotence may not be everyone's goal, but it sure doesn't seem to go well in movies. This time around, there is a Korean drug syndicate led by Choi Min-sik (Oldboy) who have synthesized a drug that takes the human brain to a new level.
There are some nice moments in the film, but the pieces just don't fit smoothly together. Circumstances are such that Scarlett finds herself experiencing the effects of the drug - first by dancing on the ceiling ala Lionel Ritchie, and then with the most awkward phone call to mom in film history. Soon enough her telekinetic powers are so advanced, she mows down the heavily armed bad guys with a flick of the finger. If that makes no sense to you, you'll have to follow along with Professor Morgan Freeman's charts and graphs. His lecture spells out the steps that Scarlett will go through and the interconnected scene cuts makes sure all movie goers can keep up ... even those who don't use 10% of their brain.
My biggest complaint is that if a movie about extraordinary intelligence is to be made, then the movie itself should at least be smart ... or witty. What the movie tells us is that expanded brain access allows us to medically diagnose our friends through a hug, instantly change hair color while strolling through the airport, and create invisible force fields to trap our enemies. We also learn that really smart people drive the wrong way on one-way streets. In Dallas, we typically refer to those people as idiots ... or at least horrible drivers. Evidently the joke is on us - those are the enlightened ones!
This movie should have been a lot more fun than it was. A tip of the cap to Mr. Besson for casting Choi Min-sik and Amr Waked (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen), and for the global trek from Taipei to Berlin to Paris to NYC ... and finally a dinosaur and memory stick. While Scarlett's character remembers the taste of her mother's milk, I expect the memory of this film will fade quickly.