Besson, Being, and Time

Rating: 9/10 (9 September 2014)

Lucy is the name given to the fossil remains of female hominid who lived 3.2 million years ago (the first woman, the movie calls her). Lucy is also the name given to the main character of this movie, the first person to use a greater, much greater, percentage of her neurons.
Lucy starts out as some very ordinary girl who for some reason finds herself in Taiwan and dating some hustler named Richard. He begs her to deliver a case for him to a man in a hotel lobby. She's not interested. He handcuffs the case to her wrist, puts $500 down her blouse. Off she goes to ask for Mr. Jang. Next thing, Richard who has been watching from outside is shot and she's dragged away. Jang doesn't speak English and is suspicious. Lucy is forced to open the case. There are bags of blue crystal drug in there. Jang offers Lucy a job. She declines. Next, she wakes up with a scar on her abdomen. She and 3 other guys have been implanted with a bag of the new drug and are supposed to deliver it to the rest of the world.
Lucy is placed in a room where she's abused by some guy, she resists, he beats her up. The bag in her abdomen leaks and she's affected by the drug. At first she gains physical strength and other strange powers. She leaves the place after shooting up the bad guys, goes to a hospital to have the bag removed from her body. She notices how her mind and skills are expanding.
Parallel to this we meet some scientist named Norman who is giving a speech in Paris about what it would be life for humans to use a greater percentage of their neurons. Lucy calls him showing him her skills. She's living proof of what he's been theorizing about. She tells him she'll see him in Paris. As she travels to Paris she develops the skill to control other people, but mid-flight her body almost vaporizes so she has to inhale the rest of the drug she's carrying with her. She also alerts the authorities about the other 3 mules.
In Paris she meets a cop she's been communicating with. They catch the mules and take them all to Paris. She meets the scientists and has no choice but go all the way and take all the drugs and to see what will happen. But, the Asian mobster is also in Paris determined to get his drugs back.
Lucy isn't so much about the action. It's...who would have thought...about the ideas. And who would have thought that it would be Besson to come up with a rich philosophical movie, a movie not even about French existentialism but about German metaphysics. The issues covered include--being vs. having, reproduction vs. immortality, matter and energy, and being and time. The science is a bit hokie, but the philosophical ideas are solid. That said, of the philosophical action movies (The Matrix, Inception), this one is the weakest when it comes to the action, the philosophical ideas also, aren't worked out, just hinted.
Still, I enjoyed Lucy a great deal. Johansson does a good job. I wasn't crazy about the robot-like acting near the end though. If you catch the ideas and references, the movie gives you a lot to think about. While the movie doesn't quite develop the questions it wants to ask, it comes up with the answer and the answer is indeed philosophically significant.