Review of Lucy (2014) by Neocomp92 — 22 Aug 2014

If you want to watch this movie on the merits of the trailer, be warned that the trailer is deceptive. It makes it look like the movie is an action thriller, but its not. It tries to blend sci-fi with incomprehensible philosophy that is badly written in, and whatever "action" you see is monotonous, without conflict, emotion or even any semblance of a good, traditional action scene. Towards the end of the movie, we get to see Luc Besson's ravers dream, with gratuitous use of post-production CG (even though the CG is mediocre at best), that does not add any substance to whatever message he wants to convey in this film. What is he trying to say, that if we go 100% of our brain, we become God??? Even at 20% the film suddenly morphs into X-Men territory.

S. Jo's performance in this is the only worthy thing out of this tripe. She really conveyed the transformation from an ordinary young lady, terrified for being forced into a drug smuggler, into inhuman woman who knows everything and has the power of God. The problem is that the transformation is too sudden. One minute you see her crying, the next she's gunning down anyone who stands in her way. In trailers I feared that the action would make her look like Black Widow from Avengers, but in the movie, with how easily and coldly she could dispatch her foes, she (tries) to look like Famke Janssen from X-Men 3. I say tries because there is no subtle hint of any effort, or conflict, behind the action. Its just there, like she's on God mode.

Morgan Freeman is one of the Lord's of exposition, but when you ask him to do anything but that (especially if its based on dodgy sci-fi that is poorly written), you actually undervalue the actor. That's what happened here. Any scene involving him apart from the first three is crap, because there is no more plot that requires his narration to advance.

Which leads to my point with Lucy; the film is genuinely about her, and any other character is superfluous. The problem is that she's an unemotional woman who is trying to fulfill the basic purpose of life. There is no balancing act, because other characters simply do not make their presence felt at all. There was even a scene, where the French police was asked to follow Lucy shortly after she used God mode on a dozen Korean mooks. He blatantly asked why he should be there, to which Lucy outright kissed him, implying that he's her "balancing act" of reminding her of humanity. WTF, it just came out of the blue?????

Speaking of Koreans, why them?? Is Besson afraid of pissing off the Russians? Can't he use the French mafia, or even Western villains (hell, there was one supporting villain character who was English)?

Finally, what was the point of this movie? S Jo's. intro and ending narration is painting a picture of what is the purpose of human life? In between I see images of chimps, predators, the act of animals humping each other and birth, and the ravers dream of how the Earth was made??? The worst part was that it was clear that these images were meant to pad out the film, with no unifying theme whatsoever. They were used as a sort of analogy; the predator scene was interspersed with scenes of S.Jo being captured by Koreans, the animal sex interspersed with Freeman's lecture....