Lucy – 2.5/5 – Movie Reviews by Ry!
Lucy – 2.5/5 – Films are meant to do one thing; entertain. No matter topic, genre of basis of a film, there’s that one common fact. No matter how I critique a film, this is the one rule I always trend towards, good or bad. Lucy is a film that fails to even do that, even with the hoopla and trivial pretense it has. Lots of potential, but it is a film that dies out by the end.
Premise: A woman accidentally gets caught in a dark deal. What looks like the end for Lucy, turns out to be beneficial to her. As the tables turn on her captors, she transforms into a merciless warrior evolved beyond human logic. As time is of the essence, will Lucy be able to perform her task before she reaches 100 percent?
Playing the titular character of Lucy is Scarlet Johansson. In this role, she starts out as an ‘aloof’ one-dimensional woman getting caught up with the wrong people. Because of this, certain things cause her to get ‘dosed’ with a drug that unlocks her brain. From this point, she goes from one side of the coin to another. Even though she becomes the caricature of a supreme being, she is still one-dimensional. Robotic in every sense of the word; you really see no greatness to the ‘build up’ of what she represents. If the topical references of someone using more than ’10 percent’ of their brain is suppose to be unknown, I can understand the reasoning for how they ‘perceived’ this role. Even so, you have to bring some kind of attachment to believe what you see. At first, you see the fear of becoming ‘smart’, but it all just ends up being a shell of a person. This is a main character of the film; you have to give some reason for the audience to cheer for them. This is a flaw in the directing as much as it is on the person in the role. When it comes to the rest of the cast, there isn’t anything notable to speak of. Everyone else play typical ‘archetypes’ for any kind of ‘action oriented film’. The only notable thing to speak of is some big names in the film; both foreign and domestic (Morgan Freeman, Min-sik Choi and Amir Waked). Their characters are stale, and have zero purpose but being obvious plot devices.
The direction will be summed up near the end of this explanation. I will start off by describing that this film is one of two halves of potential; ‘build up’ and ‘lack thereof’. The first half is the ‘build up’ and the second half is the ‘lack thereof’. The film starts off quick (with no real prologue) not taking long in introducing Lucy, the drug, and the combination that leads to the catalyst of the film’s premise. Once Lucy’s mind is ‘unlocked’ we move steadily as she begins to build up her ‘awarenesses’ of sorts, which also gets paralleled with ‘visual’ to show the draw of humanistic perspective, life and mental capacity. Once Lucy heads on her rampage, we are then paralleled with the action scenes with a long exposition about the human brain from Morgan Freeman’s character. This all seems well because of the ‘mysterious’ aura of what could happen (at first), but as an audience member, you come to realize the fragments in the parallelism, noticing the director is hiding the lack of vision with the ‘fluff’ of typical action. The film doesn’t give story as a chance as it it paces quickly with a combination of fights, shootouts and car chases. As more becomes unlocked inside Lucy’s brain, you are curiously entertain by how Lucy combines fear, anxiety and ‘stone cold’ complexion in how she tries to stay focused. Once we get to the point where the film tries to too much to be smart and also action oriented, it fragments the enjoyment of the film as the audience loses their grip on what the purpose of the film. The fragment starts to sway us from the ‘build up’ to the ‘lack thereof’ sense. The film starts to lose all its smarts, and starts to rattle into a dumb action oriented film. Even if a film goes in this direction, it can still be entertaining. The reason for it not being this because it tries too hard to juggle both the intelligent part of the script with the ‘over-the-top’ sequences being directed on screen. Here, you see how the director’s motive gets lost in all the imaginative sense, showing a real lost to providing a good narrative. As we watch as Lucy becomes even more ‘over powered’, the exposition of life (through Morgan Freeman) and the obnoxious action sequences start to become mind numbing. Once the film gets to its climax, it attempts to be ‘intelligently’ dramatic, but fails to do so because of lack of characterization, plot or explanation of what the hell is happening (through its visual montage of life). When the film ends, you come to realize that you’re as dumfounded as Morgan Freeman and all the other characters are, as you just try to understand what just happened.
The visuals of the film are unique to the overall ‘idea’ of using more of your brain, but it becomes boringly repetitive as you get near the end. The score is mute at best.
Lucy is a film that has a lot of potential but fails for a number of reasons. Even if the film relies on heavy action and typical characters; it should always find a way to entertain. Lucy fails to do even that (in the overall scheme). If you want to take a chance, go for it. I’d recommend not watching this film, even if you’re a fan of Scarlet Johansson.