Lucy Review (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

Then I didn't appreciate "Lucy"!

 

[Edwin-S]

I'm a bit ambivalent about this film. I didn't hate it, but I don't love it either. The interesting thing about this film is that the trailers sort of sold as a typical revenge flick, but it turned out to be anything but. The premise was a bit goofy, but overall I didn't mind the film just so long as I didn't start comparing it to 2001: A Space Odyssey, because that is what "Lucy" seemed to be trying to imitate in some respects. The end result pretty well showed that Luc Besson is no Stanley Kubrick. The opening sequence with the boyfriend wasn't all that great and the intercutting with the animal footage just felt clumsy. I might think "The Thin Red Line" was kind of boring, but I cannot fault how Terence Malick did the intercutting of scenes of nature with the war footage. It made almost no sense to me, but the result was still poetic cinematography. The only other guy that I can think of where the technique worked rather well was in Guy Ritchie's "Snatch". In this film, it just didn't work all that well. After a while it felt like they were belaboring a point. The shot with the mouse, the trap and the cheese was especially bad.

Johansen did a pretty good job, but I have to wonder why they figure that anyone who unlocks their full mental capacity becomes an emotionless machine. I mean, what are they trying to say? That pyschopaths are operating at a higher level of mental capacity than sane people?

There was one scene that I thought was rather well done. It was the one where she sees how people are connected to the communication network by "data strings". I thought that one was not only a neat visual trick, but rather telling as well, because it shows how tethered we have become through our devices.

 

[Vic Pardo]

I write about Lucy in my latest blog entry: "I love LUCY (and Scarlett)"

http://briandanacamp.wordpress.com

 

[Alan Tully]

Apparently this, only using 10% of our brains, is a load of old cobblers. We use all of our brain all of the time.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Apparently this, only using 10% of our brains, is a load of old cobblers. We use all of our brain all of the time.

For some people, I'm dubious of that assertion...

 

[Edwin-S]

Apparently this, only using 10% of our brains, is a load of old cobblers. We use all of our brain all of the time.

I find I can ignore inaccuracies like that for purposes of telling a story. If film makers had to be 100% scientifically accurate all of the time then they might as well just be making science education films, not fiction films.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Given my reputation for hating everything, I'm reluctant to post, but what the hell!

Even though I've enjoyed a bunch of Luc Besson movies, I resisted seeing "Lucy" because it just looked dopey. However, the praise it got encouraged me to give it a shot.Ugh.Pseudo-intellectual claptrap + bad exposition + enormous plot holes + ridiculous fantasy notions + bad CG + boring action = a slow, mind-numbing 80-something minutes. I must've checked my watch five times during this clunker - not what we call "a good sign".

Maybe I'll watch "Fifth Element" to remember when Besson made enjoyable movies. One can accuse it of some of the same sings, but at least it's FUN!

 

[Edwin-S]

Why wouldn't you have just left if you found it so boring that that you had to check your watch five times? I can't figure why someone would suffer through a movie that they hated.

 

[TravisR]

Why wouldn't you have just left if you found it so boring that that you had to check your watch five times? I can't figure why someone would suffer through a movie that they hated.

I don't know if it's because I've paid $10 or because I want to stick it out no matter what or because I'm just a masochist but out of the hundreds of movies I've seen in the theater, I've left once. And even then, it was a free movie because it was a 'sneak preview' where after the new movie, you could stick around for another movie from the same studio.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Why wouldn't you have just left if you found it so boring that that you had to check your watch five times? I can't figure why someone would suffer through a movie that they hated.

I don't leave movies early - simple as that. If I'm going to see a movie, I'm going to see the whole thing - some end up redeeming themselves in their late stages...

 

[DaveF]

Apparently, a high school kid's attempt at an anime film got passed off as a Luc Besson script. And his friends edited it, before anyone realized the pros were still on vacation.

Lucy is an odd movie. In some aspects, it's surprising and thrilling, the way a careening unexpected sci-fi movie can be.

And it's also very amateurish. Filled with generic, stock footage to needlessly emphasize dialogue. The evolution of Lucy's powers is somewhat random and inexplicable.

The core problem is there's no emotion. I had no empathy for Lucy. She had no emotional journey. And the end was an exciting bombast of special effects.

It was entertaining. Funny ... When it didn't mean to be. Unexpected. If you watch Lucy as a live-action anime, it helps.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Put me in the "didn't love it or hate it" camp. It was an OK action flick; nothing more. "No emotion" is right. Facial expressions sans any kind of interesting storyline do not qualify as "character development" for me.


I've only seen half of Under the Skin. Good grief, that movie is slow paced. But it was mildly interesting, so I do plan on finishing it at some point.