Lucy Review (1 Viewer)

Had Besson made Lucy in the mid-to-late 90's, then surely Milla Jovovich, Besson's secret weapon for The Fifth Element, would have been tapped to fill the lead role. As it stands, Johansson is a worthy successor to Jovovich, and Lucy is a worthy modern update to Jovovich's Leeloo character from that film: a no-nonsense, super-powered femme fatale who doesn't need someone like Bruce Willis to protect her, because she's perfectly capable of handling her enemies on her own. And handle them she does: at first, Lucy subdues her aggressors with physical force and lightning-fast reflexes, but as she unlocks a greater and greater percentage of her gray matter, she becomes adept at neutralizing her opponents with a mere glance or a wave of the hand, all without so much as breaking a sweat.
Of course, this all but nullifies the hopes of anyone expecting to see Johansson slip into full-on Black Widow mode to vanquish the bad guys. Lucy has been billed as a sci-fi/action extravaganza, but while there are spurts of madcap action (including a giddy Transporter-esque vehicular sequence and a frenetic gun battle which culminates in a gangster using — what else — a rocket launcher to obliterate a locked door), Besson is primarily concerned with unlocking the potential of the story's far-out sci-fi premise, full of musings on metaphysics and human existence. In other words, the movie's DNA is more The Fifth Element than it is La Femme Nikita.

Despite the audaciousness of Besson's grand design, it all hinges on Johansson's performance as the intellectually-enhanced title character. Much like her portrayal of the slinky alien visitor in Under the Skin, the actress invokes an otherwordly quality for the role, coming across as one part alien, one part robot, as underscored by her deadpan delivery and Lucy's zen-like calmness in the face of adversity. But to Johansson's credit, she always keeps Lucy's humanity floating just beneath the surface, and it shines through on occasion, as in a tender scene where Lucy phones her mother as if to speak with her for the very last time. Likewise, when Del Rio asks her why she needs him at all, since she's more than able to fend for herself, Lucy replies with poetic soulfulness, "As a reminder."

And that's essentially what Lucy is: a reminder of Besson's potential as a filmmaker. After a string of lackluster projects, many moviegoers might already be content with writing him off as having scraped the bottom of his creative barrel, but this movie proves otherwise. It's imaginative and bold, and even though its final act may catch viewers off-guard with its sheer amount of metaphysical insanity, it's a testament to Besson's creative prowess that he's even able to pull it off at all.

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Patrick Sun said:

Meh. Lazy. No real interesting story to speak of. Character development was sparse.

2 stars, or a grade of C.

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Robert Crawford said:

What other character development you need in this type of film? You have Lucy, a college student that likes to party and really doesn't have much in motivation in life except having a good time. After what happens to her, it alters her character into something else and I thought she did a good job explaining her new character development with her lines of dialogue after her alteration.

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Patrick Sun said:

I'm not going to apologize for not liking this film. Cut out that opening silly hand-cuff sequence, and it's barely a 60-minute "film". Cut out the silly car chase scene, it's maybe a 50-minute "movie" at that point. There is no "there" there. It's a lame movie. It's polarizing, love-it-or-hate-it movie, I'm in the latter group. I'm glad others got more enjoyment out of the film than I did. It happens. But if someone asks me if I'd recommend it, I'd say "No, not really."

I find the films I enjoy more, are ones with enough character development to give a damn about what's happening to the main characters, be they protagonist or antagonist, and if the drama is worth the story being told. This film, meh.

Were they competing against "Transcendance" in the production stage? They missed the release date race, but their marketing was skillful enough to pull in huge numbers for its opening weekend.

And yeah, I thought "Under the Skin" was kind of groan-worthy, too, but still more interesting in a odd way over "Lucy". But truth be told, how many would have still sought it out without the fanfare paid to the titular payoff of Johansson's unclothed scenes?

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