Review of Lucy (2014) by Cheyenne W — 19 Sep 2017

I was listing my top ten favorite movies recently and thought, what about Lucy? It's a movie I love, but everyone else seems to hate. Maybe it's because my suspension of disbelief (aka the amount of BS I can stand) is just really large when it comes to this film. I usually don't have trouble believing anything when it comes to film in the first place, unless it's a huge plot hole. And though Lucy has tons of problems, the biggest being the lie that humans only use 10% of their brain, I can look past them because of the strong woman warrior/goddess messages the film offers. Yes, it is from a white, straight, cis, upper middle class, point of view, but I guess I'll take any type of female representation I can get at this point (thank you Hollywood for giving me extremely low standards).

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Lucy is a young American college student studying abroad in Taipei, Taiwan. She's finishing up the semester when she gets roped in to Korean drug trafficking ring. A bag of CPH4, a synthetic drug based off of the chemical that pregnant women produce in order to give fetuses life, is sewn inside her stomach. She's attacked by the Korean drug trafficking goonies while transporting the drug outside of Taiwan. During the attack, the CPH4 bag breaks, releasing large quantities into her system. This lets her defy gravity and start consciously using more than 10% of her brain. She gets the bag out, but realizes that her body has grown dependent on the drug, and she will need to consume all of it in order for her to reach 100% of her brain capacity. Then, she will materialize in to matter and will become intangible, no longer needing to take human form.

Throughout this, Morgan Freeman narrates about what happens if a human's brain reaches, 20%, 30%, 40%, and so on until 100% of brain capacity is reached. It's important to note that humans already use most, if not all of their brain, but they have no conscious control over breathing, blinking, etc. The movie says that humans only use 10% of their brain consciously, and Lucy is on a journey to experience what it's like to be able to consciously control more than 10% of her brain. The different percentages are the time stamps in the film. The audience isn't given much to work with. Without these percentages, the film could be happening over weeks or months, but the entirety of the event takes place in just one week. The audience is also kept in the dark about Lucy, but I don't think that's a problem. Scarlett Johansson can hold the movie on her own. She doesn't need a back story or flash backs. Lucy is constantly in the present and in motion. There is one slow scene in the movie which I think is wonderful. It's when she's on the phone with her mother after taking the bag of CPH4 out of her stomach. She talks with her mother about all of the things she can remember about her, drinking the milk from her mother's breast is last of them. Here, Lucy is reborn, her past no longer matters. The mission that was thrust upon her is clear. She must give her knowledge back to humanity, while also going on a quest for revenge to the people who did this to her in the first place.

Another aspect of the film I really enjoy is the cinematography. I love when Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis, meets Lucy, portrayed by Johansson. Both portray the "missing link" character and join humanity's past and future together. I also enjoyed the space imagery. When Lucy is zooms out of earth's atmosphere and sees the wider universe, it's amazing. It's as if she's become god. I don't know if the movie is saying that all humans could be god if they reached 100% brain capacity, but I do like how that's a possibility the film asks the audience.

I also think it's interesting this goddess role is given to a woman. It seems fitting seeing that women are the bearers of life. Though this does seem like an essentialist view of womanhood, it could also be empowering in that the universe could not exist without women. I also like Lucy because she is a strong woman warrior. She's on a lone quest for revenge, but also on a journey to help humanity. Once she gets her revenge, she tries to make sense of the rest of her life, and what should she do with all of her new found knowledge. She assembles the brightest minds in neurology to help her, and stores everything she knows on a flash drive in order for the information to be passed to future generations. I guess that's the only part I really don't get - how does the knowledge of the entire universe get stored on at most a 16 gigabyte flash drive?

I give Lucy a 9/10. It makes us wonder about our own capabilities as humans, and shows how badass an adult female figure can be. Even though she's violent, and seems cold hearted and ruthless, she's a woman on a mission who will not be stopped. And maybe it's because of her gender people thought she was cold? Maybe that's why they needed to throw a random love interest in the movie? That I could have done without, but everything else I think is a step in the right direction.