GUT REACTION REVIEW: Lucy

Lucy

Starring Scarlett Johansson, Written and Directed by Luc Besson

Universal Studios

By: Chris "Sledge" Douglas

I...

I uh...

...

Spoilers ahead. This is the only way I can do this.





This was a really weird film.

I really think I could just end the review right there. Period. Done. But... I feel I need to get this off my chest. Maybe for my own sanity.

This movie leaves me in a very weird place. One in which I don't know at all what to think of it. I went into it thinking it would be a fun revenge drama with super powers. Of course, I enjoyed Scarlett's portrayal of Natasha Romanov in the Marvel Studios films, so seeing her play a character similar to that in another movie would be an interesting experience. Which it was.

Then why am I so hesitant to say I liked it or not?

I had just as hard a time trying to figure out what the theme of the film was. Was it survival? Adaptation? Actually, the more I think about it, the more it seems to be humanity is just another animal. More on this later.

What I liked:

- The opening scenes were great. This is the part where Johansson shines, and also where you get to see all the range she uses in this movie. Yup. Because it all disappears after that. I mean, it was perhaps necessary considering what the film was trying to do, but we get very little of the emotional human Lucy.

Regardless, I felt she was very believable as an unknowing and terrified drug mule. A very good way to work up to a satisfying revenge movie climax.

Which, unfortunately never happens.

- I really liked the film's use of cutaways to nature, animals, etc. At least at first.

Maybe they went a little too long at parts. But when they were appropiate, like when she's being talked into doing the suitcase job, and we see the film cutaway to a mouse approaching a cheese-loaded mousetrap, they work to really to tie into the aforementioned theme of humans as animals.

However I could have used less footage of animals mating and giving live, bloody, disgusting birth. That was quite unnecessary.

Hey... I'm noticing what I like also ends up being something I don't like. Which leads me to...

What I didn't like:
- The entire premise. While this may be a movie-killer to some when it comes to the entire premise being flimsy, here it's just a minor annoyance with me. We all know that the whole "humans only use X% of their brain capacity" thing has long been disgarded. I've decided to kind of sort of let this one go because it's more useful to think of it as them setting the rules of their own universe, rather than actual hard science.

And that's another thing... the science of this universe is really wierd. I mean, she just KNOWS stuff even without having a chance to read anything. Is it just generating itself, knowledge I mean? Why is she falling apart? Why do the drugs help her when she takes more? How does she know what she can do before she does them?

And it doesn't extend to the science aspects either... even just some basic human things as well... like, why is she able to walk all the way through a hospital without anyone trying to stop her? Why does Morgan Freeman believe her story right from the get go? Does her being able to video chat with him give him irrevocable proof? How so? Why does her mother show NO REACTION to her daughter's strange and presumably to her out-of-character ramblings about, "feeling everything?" Wouldn't someone, especially a knowing the party girl Lucy was, kind of assume that this strange behavior is, I don't know, STRANGE? And perhaps even more important, if she is losing her humanity and the emotions that go with it, why is she (seemingly at first) out for revenge?

Actually, the more I think about it, the more it seems to be on purpose. As the film goes on, the other characters become less and less able to help as she plows through henchman after henchman. This also then makes the idea of the answers to the above questions not making sense... well... make sense. After all, if you're left asking yourself about logic in a universe that is already pretty weird, maybe its like how the humans are less and less capable with relating to Lucy herself.

Or maybe I'm just over-thinking things. Maybe it's that.

- The idea. While Mr. Besson (not only this film's writer/director but also that of Fifth Element, another weird film) may have thought this was a brand new idea, it's really been done before. Yeah, even something as wild as a human evolving into something higher than humanity and therefore becoming less and less relatable has been done on a number of Star Trek episodes and movies, and even with Dr. Manhattan in The Watchmen. And there's something about this idea that always turns me off. If I had known that what I thought was a fun revenge film would turn into a man becomes god story, I'd have probably not even have given it a chance.

- The film has no conclusion. Sure, the whole Lucy turning into God thing happened, but it comes out of nowhere, considering where one thinks the film is initially going.


Final Thoughts:

For my gut reaction, I would have to say I liked it more than I didn't. The action was great (when we had it), and the opening scene was really strong. While having the premise of it's world be a disproved theory may have been a minor issue at first, the more I think about it, the more I think it was done on purpose to detach us from the world we are watching unfold on-screen. And it's a world I wouldn't mind seeing at least one more time to see if I still think the same way.