Lucy

I won't pretend that I understood all of what happened in Lucy, or even some of the stuff that was talked about.  I don't think it matters, anyway.  This is a taut and tightly executed screenplay that, yes, doesn't always make a lot of sense, and is often quite goofy.  However, it is lifted up by the talented Scarlett Johansson and especially Morgan Freeman, both of whom know how to sell this kind of material and make it work.

Lucy was written and directed by Luc Besson, who has been making action thrillers for years now, and mainly specializes in movies that have a simple hook or gimmick that instantly draws the audience in, such as in the Taken franchise with Liam Neeson.  This movie still has an effective hook, but it's a bit more ambitious than usual for Besson.  At its core, this is essentially a superhero story for adults.  Its heroine is a young woman who, at the start of the story, is constantly being manipulated by the men around her.  But then, through the aid of an illegal drug that accidentally enters her system, she unlocks parts of her own brain she never knew she had, and is also able to develop psychic and telekinetic powers in the process.  Yeah, it's all a bunch of hooey, and the movie knows it.  Fortunately, we have Morgan Freeman as a Professor who specializes in the brain and its untapped resources to explain it all for us.  It may still be hooey, but when it's coming from the mouth and voice of Morgan Freeman, somehow it's a lot easier to buy.

Scarlett Johansson plays the titular character, who develops these great brain powers, with great responsibility, of course.  The drug that gave her these powers is also slowly taking her life, so she only has a limited amount of time to find out what's happening to her, and take revenge on those responsible.  Johansson has to pull off a tricky balance with her performance, as she must be sympathetic, while at the same time passing herself off as someone who is not afraid to kill in an instant if it means getting help or answers.  In one scene, she storms into an operating room while a patient is being worked on.  She needs the doctors to operate on her, but they are obviously busy with the current patient.  Using her mental powers, Lucy quickly deduces that the current patient has no chance for survival, so she draws her gun and shoots the person dead, then takes their place on the operating table.  She explains her actions to the doctors with a certain cool detachment.  She is not a soulless killing machine, but as her brain capacity grows, she does start thinking in some very scarily rational ways.

At the outset, Lucy is a typical American student living in Taiwan.  She's made the big mistake of hooking up with and dating a shady individual who has ties to the mob.  He manipulates and eventually forces her to take a briefcase with mystery contents into a hotel where a crime boss (Choi Min-sik) is waiting for the delivery.  Within moments, Lucy finds herself surrounded by mobsters, her boyfriend is dead, and the crime boss has knocked her unconscious.  When she awakes, the mobsters are planning to use her as a drug mule.  They have already cut open her stomach, placed a bag of experimental drugs within, then sewed her back up.  The drug is a synthetic version of a human growth factor, and when the bag within her breaks open accidentally after a struggle, the drug enters her bloodstream, and that is how she gains her heightened senses and mental abilities.

The movie tracks her evolutionary progress, with title cards representing how much more brain capacity than normal she is now using.  At only around 30% or so, she can manipulate TVs and phone signals, as well as develop powers that allow her to see that her best friend is suffering from kidney failure, just by touching her.  The mobsters quickly find out about Lucy's abilities and how she is on the loose, so they obviously want her dead.  The police get involved in the chase as well, while Lucy tries to track down the other people who are being used as mules to deliver the experimental drug to different parts of the world.  This is also where Morgan Freeman's character comes in, as he and his colleagues try to help Lucy control her abilities and use them for the progress of science.

Running by at a very brisk 90 minutes, Lucy is a strong example of action carrying the story.  The movie literally throws us right into the action almost as soon as the studio logo fades away, and forces us to discover what's going on alongside its heroine.  This is a movie that is very driven by special effects and stunt pieces, but Besson's screenplay does allow for a couple effective quiet moments, such as a surprisingly poignant scene where Lucy calls her mother on the phone, and she realizes that this is the last time she will likely talk to her, while her mother remains unaware of what's really going on.  Since the movie is mainly driven by action, it's a good thing that it is handled well, and edited cleanly, so we can always keep a handle on what's going on, no matter how chaotic it gets.   The plot gets pretty chaotic as well, and eventually reaches a point where it's in danger of not making much sense.  Fortunately, the honest performances by Johansson and Freeman help keep the film grounded and prevent it from flying completely off the rails.

By the time it is over, the plot has reached some pretty grand Sci-Fi ideas about existence and technology.  I'm not sure how audiences will react to the way Besson chooses to end the story.  I obviously won't reveal it here, but I will say it's not in the way you might expect.  The studio is trying to sell this as a straight-out action thriller, and obviously are trying to cash in on Johansson's recent success in the Marvel films, like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Avengers.  However, the movie itself is not just a simple action film.  While it definitely has enough shoot-outs, car chases, and fighting to qualify, there's more going on in the plot itself.  The movie makes it clear early on that Lucy's enhanced abilities are also slowly killing her, so there is a sense of urgency to the mission.  It not only creates sympathy for the character, but creates a more somber mood than the action escapism we might expect from the commercials.

Lucy is a more ambitious movie than you might expect.  With so many generic action films already clogging the cinemas, that alone makes it worth your attention.  Fortunately, it's also expertly made and well-acted.  Even if I didn't really buy the science that the movie was trying to sell me, I found myself willing to go along for the ride, and glad that I did when it was over.

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