Living up to her name, Lucy feels a little like the Peanuts‘ sourpuss who pulls the football out from Charlie Brown as he approaches. I liked Lucy. Yes, I did. But like the anticipation of kicking a football, there was potential here for a great film, and Lucy ain’t juicy.
[Actually, the first draft of the sentence read: “a film with a great deal of potential bogged down in a morass of semantics and philosophy.” I like “Lucy ain’t juicy” better.]
We start in China, where a white trash American coerces his white trash gal Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) into making a delivery by handcuffing her to a briefcase. She’s not bright, but even she can tell this is a bad idea. We already know she’s in big trouble when armed thugs force her to a remote office. Meanwhile, in another film, Morgan Freeman is playing Cap’n Exposition while giving a lecture on brain percentage use. We standard issue grub Homo sapiens only use 10% of our brains. Pathetic! As Morgan orates to an arena, the background of his presentation shows b-roll of “Wild Kingdom.” Cut away to the parallel — Lucy being strong-armed by Chinese mafia is akin to cheetahs taking down a gazelle. The juxtaposition is almost amuse-y.
Oh, there’s a lot of bad science in Lucy. Good stuff for films, but quite irresponsible in the big picture.
This parallel exposition is a gambit manipulated many times in Lucy, especially as our gal goes from white trash to beyond-human-comprehension intelligent thanks to the contents of the case: some sort of superman intellidrug like the one Bradley Cooper indulges in Limitless. Except, of course, this one looks the blue pebbles found at the bottom of aquariums. As a filled bag sewn into Lucy‘s abdomen bursts, the film goes from Lucy to abuse-y.
The biggest problem with Lucy is neither premise nor lead, but execution: the drug makes Lucy too powerful too quickly. 
Well, second biggest problem; the biggest problem is it’s a Luc Besson, so it comes with all his standard Bessonality: doesn’t matter if we start is Asia; you know when you see the name in the opening credits, there is going to be at least one car chase through the streets of Paris. I’m just stating fact, not being accuse-y.
As a result, Lucy becomes more of a thought piece — Scarlett Johansson plays a woman constantly using more and more of her brain and consequently loses more and more of her humanity. Is this what Luc is telling us? Information comes at a cost? Part of being human is making sure there’s plenty of brain not being used? I could get behind that conclusion, I suppose. But the implication that intelligence comes at the expense of being human seems suspect. Was Albert Einstein any less human than the rest of us, really? And as Morgan expounds, does life all come down, simply, to “passing information along.” That seems suspect, too, but maybe I couldn’t appreciate it fully because I only use 10% of my brain, if that, you see.
♪Picture yourself as a mule for a capo
Your abdomen laced with marmalade pies
Somebody kicks you, the bag opens slowly
Enjoy as your brain overdrives♫
Rated R, 90 Minutes
D: Luc Besson
W: Luc Besson
Genre: Brain fun
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Feminists
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Scientists
♪ Parody inspired by “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
