Lucy Review – Luc Besson’s Film Moves With Breathless Gusto

So here’s the deal: what’s it like for a human being to function at 100% brain power? Professor Norman (Morgan Freeman) doesn’t know, his gormless students (who seem to be functioning on a lot less than the average 10%) don’t know, but LUCY (Scarlett Johansson) is sure about to show us.

LUCY is compared rather daftly, whimsically, to ‘Lucy’ – first ever known-about ‘human’. But this Lucy, our Lucy, is at the opposite ends of the brain-busting super-calculating Hollywood-blonde spectrum. Duped by a useless hood in a Stetson, Lucy carries a suitcase with unknown contents to meet with a scary (but all huff-and-puff) bunch of bad boys from Asia.  It’s do or die for Lucy, and before she knows it she’s bearing, like a terrible blue baby, a pouch of weirdo prototype drugs in her belly. And it’s about to get worse . . . the drugs leak out and do fizzy fireworks in Lucy’s brain and blood.

So Lucy’s brain power goes off the scale, up from the usual 10% to all-out 100% overload. And here’s the thing – the more superhuman she becomes, so the less human she is. And why? Cos the moral of the tale is thus: we are ever our imperfections, our 10% only, our ‘could do better’ on the school report, our failures and peccadillos. Any more and we start to lose our humanity. Our nasty gang follow in hot pursuit but it’s men in badass suits against . . . one super-powerful telekinetic mind-bending glassy-eyed (no emotions now, you see) lady. They ain’t got a chance, or do they . . . this is Scarlett Johansson, after all . . .  

The plot, while scientifically plodding, moves with a breathless gusto. The opening scenes bring genuine suspense, the rest you’ve probably seen before. But that’s OK – because it’s all fun, it keeps you hooked, and Scarlett Johansson makes a convincing and even compelling slightly bonkers heroine.

If you like your movies as sheer entertainment, thrills and wacky spills, then this movie will probably do it for you. The trouble is it’s too big for its own boots. It tries to fill the role of anthropological or philosophical treatise and, really, struggles to even crawl (a bit like our first hominid ‘Lucy’) on that front. The movie lacks subtlety and it can’t help that: how do you précis the meaning of life and time and bring in the big bucks all in 89 minutes?

100% brain capacity means limitlessness, total connectedness, across all eras, all space, remembering the taste of your mother’s milk. Luc Besson, director, is a bit preachy here, but heck, it’s a Saturday night with popcorn and we forgive him.

One of the sweetest touches, in a movie you can’t really call ‘sweet’, is Lucy’s relationship with almost-cameo French cop Pierre Del Rio (Amr Waked). Mid all chaos and giddy gravity games, Pierre asks Lucy why on earth she needs him around . . . after all, he’s mere 10% mortal. Lucy kisses him: he reminds her of her humanity, of what she was when she was beautifully 10% like him, the rest all potential. Love is lost when you rack up the percentages. Lucy is a fun movie, makes interesting statements, the effects are cool, and though it’s a bit wannabe scholarly, sit back and enjoy the potty ride.

Verdict ★★★

The film is out now:

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