Movie Review: Lucy... What Has Science Done?

A week out until Guardians of the Galaxy to basically tie up the summer movie drought. It hasn’t been ALL bad though, as this week we got a strange little piece that is worth a quick look I can review pretty quickly. No, it’s not Hercules. I wish that had been more interesting, but I’ve seen almost no promotional material for it and reviews are panning it pretty broadly… safe to say I’m going to be missing that. That leaves us with Lucy, starring the always fun Scarlett Johansson and… a bunch of other people… and Morgan Freeman. 

What is Lucy? Lucy is a film about a person who is forced into a drug-smuggling situation that gets way out of hand all too quickly. The drugs in question are surgically put inside her and three other individuals to be shipped to wherever to sell for a big price for big profits for these Asian gangsters. What kind of drug is it? CPH4, which, according to the scientists in the movie, is a chemical that is only found with fetuses during childbirth and has the potential power of a nuclear bomb… yeah… that didn’t fully make sense to me either.

(same conceit used for Slade in the comics too)

The main conceit of the film is utilizing the old scientific rumor about how humans only use 10% of their brain and this drug that spills into Lucy’s (Scarlet Johansson) body is slowly granting her more use of that brain power or cortex capacity. It’s hilarious to see how worked up people have been getting over this concept when, if released in say the 80’s or 90’s no one would have cared and everyone would have thought it to be a cool idea. A cool idea alongside others such as cloning dinosaurs from DNA found in fossilized mosquitos or how we can accept the way technology works in ANY of the Star Wars films.

Is it just me or have the vast majority of filmgoers become jaded and cynical over bizarre concepts built out of science FICTION!

Anyway, the drug was consumed in a large dose and while it is granting Lucy abilities beyond human comprehension, it’s also killing her. She has maybe 24 hours to live once she finds out the situation. As such, she decides the most logical thing to do would be to take all the acquired knowledge from her time on this drug to pass it on to mankind, since they would be unlikely to attain it for themselves anytime soon. Best part is that it doesn’t end with a whole “too much of this knowledge is a bad thing” or have some other ironically horrible outcome because of this new found knowledge. It ends with the knowledge being passed and Lucy having done a good thing for the betterment of mankind. I can’t believe how refreshing it is to see a sci-fi movie that, while founded on hockey science garbage, still manages to have an overall positive message about knowledge and the pursuit thereof. Most films of the genre try to scare people in that too much info is scary or that there are some things we weren’t meant to do or know.

And while the film takes the genre in an interesting direction with an overall positive note on something philosophical about science, it does have some minor flaws that keep it from ascending into “good film status”. The pacing of the film is kind of all over the place, giving the film a rather rushed feeling overall. I’m under the impression that either some scenes were cut or there wasn’t enough money to give it an extra 15-20 minutes of padding to let the audience breathe and comprehend what concept is being thrown around at the moment. That said, if the film slowed down, the urgency of her situation wouldn’t be as intense, so I guess if you had to pick between intense high-stakes and slowing down for the audience, I appreciate them taking the route that doesn’t feel like they’re dumbing the movie down at all.

The acting isn’t particularly amazing either. It’s not bad by any means, but Scar-Jo is basically a robot the entire time. Granted, this is explained in the film that the more access she has to her brain the harder it is for her to behave like a human. This is also further exemplified in her actions and choice of dialogue throughout the film as she definitely doesn’t come off as someone who is human anymore, but is still trying to retain ENOUGH of that humanity to finish the job she started. And no one else really stands out spectacularly on the acting scene as most everyone is just playing a role of someone assisting Scar-Jo on her quest to scoop her brains out and get that juicy knowledge to the people of the world. It leaves something to be desired, especially considering the villain is pathetically underwhelming in this film, making the final confrontation trivial at best. I get we’re supposed to show that she’s overcome all of that and ascended to some higher level of existence, but it leaves for a rather limp and weak conclusion at best, which is my basic description of my Friday nights.

Another issue is how abstract this movie gets. Again, we’re getting into philosophical discussion about the reason of life, how everything started, how things function, and basically just everything about everything. A lot of it comes off as high-minded, but it’s all speculation at best (likely based on SOME scientific theory or information). And while that’s kind of cool, it does make the third act feel more like an acid trip as Lucy takes a full dosage of the drug to basically become Dr. Manhattan of Watchmen but with nice perky breasts instead of a floppy blue cock. This reminds me of my initial reaction to The Matrix and I imagine with subsequent viewings, I’ll find the seams in this film to as to how the concepts don’t quite hold up or how the plot is akin to someone throwing paint of random colors and variation on a canvas and calling it a legitimate painting.

Considering the somewhat abstract nature of the film, I like to imagine that this was all just played out in her mind as a drug trip during that initial scene where it spills into her system and she’s freaking out during her temporary imprisonment. During the entire episode, she envisions herself as some bad ass action girl while everyone else merely plays a background piece or a supporting role in her make-believe fantasy land. Meanwhile, in reality, she’s legitimately killing people and causing large-scale damage to public works that you wouldn’t see outside of a Saints Row game. And the ending, when she (editing for spoilers) is when she overdoses and her story basically comes to an end. Granted, it’s not a perfect way to interpret the movie, but it helps make sense of some of the random effects that just occur on screen showing or conveying nothing about the plot or characters.

Lucy is, unfortunately, not a great film. It’s not really bad film, but it is, if nothing else, interesting. It takes bizarre ideas and bold steps to do what few films this summer have dared to do… BE FUN. And while the execution wasn’t all there, the intent was still a net good and the end result was still colorful, bizarre, and able to spark discussions worth having. That’s more than I can say for most films this summer as we get into what is basically the final month of the summer releases. Here’s hoping August isn’t quite as bland and shit… so what’s next week… OH GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. See ya next time!