Directed by: Luc Besson
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Amr Waked, Choi Min-sik
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 89 minutes
Our Score: 3 out of 5 stars
“We only use 10% of our brain. At 20% she can manipulate the world around her. At 40% she can control matter. At 60% she can stop time. What happens when she gets to 100%? … I have no idea”
When I saw the trailer for “Lucy”, I had it feeling that it was going to be awesome. I love Scarlett Johansson and it looks like she would be kick ass in the film. What is interesting though is that the trailer and the actual film are quite different, which both good and also bad. For the first 45 minutes or so of this film, I was literally in love with this film. I was sitting in my seat, mouth open and in awe of this film…then it went downhill. The third act of the film is a quite rushed and a bit of a letdown. Here is the thing though, I still kind loved this film and haven’t stopped thinking about it since, so I am a bit conflicted here. This film is less than 90 minutes and it is a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. I hope that this is one of the those films that grows on you since I still really want to love it.
Lucy is a girl that is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She is forced to drop off a briefcase, in which she has no idea what the contents are, because of her dodgy boyfriend. Of course, the 1-2-3 hand off doesn’t go as expected and she is taken by a Korean gang and forced to harvest a new drug inside her intestines with plans to traffic it across the country. Crazy right? When things go wrong and the package is damaged while inside of her, it changes Lucy as her body absorbs the new and unknown drug in abundance. From then you have seen the trailers and you’ve heard that she is able to access more % of her brain and that leads to interesting circumstances as she adjusts to the drug and seeks revenge.
Scarlett Johansson was absolutely amazing. No joke, this was a bad-ass role with big shoes and she super nailed it. Her personality for Lucy was perfectly executed. From the subtle twitches to the dead face stares she was absolutely stunning. Another win for her after this year “Under the Skin”, which she was also quite amazing. Morgan Freeman is well…Morgan Freeman. I could listen to the guy read the instructions of a bottle of aspirin and love it. Amr Waked is not super well known in the US besides bit roles in films like “Contagion” but he was a great addition to the cast. If you are a fan of the Korean cult classic “Old Boy”, then you are going to love that fact that Choi Min-sik plays the main baddie in this and is absolutely amazing.
It is rare for me to say that but at 89 minutes, I actually wanted this film to be longer. When Lucy experiences the effects of the drugs, she goes from 10% to 40% in about an hour…and then zooms through to 100% in about 20 minutes. I could have see this being fleshed out much more, to be honest. In between all that, there is easily one of the coolest car chase scenes that I have seen in a while. It had some amazing stunts and super cool driving action. Like I said, you know when you are watching a film and it is so amazing and then just kind of ends too early and leaves you wanting more. That was the case here. I just loved this film and I wished it would have ended much better. I would still recommend this for all fans of Luc Besson and action/sci-fi fans.
