Review of Lucy (2014) by Omg_Ponies — 26 Jul 2014

Inconsistent and incoherent, lacking internal logic, charm, or emotion, it is directed by Luc Besson, who has proven himself to be the French Michael Bay.

The first 15 minutes of set-up begin are intercut with stock footage, giving the film a "We wanted to make an art film but failed miserably" feel to it. This trope is abandoned, which is fine because the movie is filled with other hackneyed film cliches. While Lucy (the name of "the first human" - get it?!) is mutating, Professor Morgan Freeman is lecturing an audience of "smart people" (it might be a symposium or it might be a college class or it might just be Luc Besson's friends) on the 10% trope.

Lucy at 20% is allegedly super-smart but she evidently keeps forgetting what she can do. At 40%, she can put people to sleep, which she doesn't do later when the movie rips of a key scene from The Matrix. She can manipulate matter but she evidently can't make more of the magic blue powder because she needs to get the rest of it. She needs "energy" but instead of tapping into an outlet, she tentacle eats a pair of color copiers. She can hear and understand all radio and cellular and electronic transmissions but she needs physical access to a supercomputer. In short, the movie sets up internal rules for itself and then ignores all of them.

The acting is fairly terrible. Johannsen's character is devoid of any emotion throughout the entire movie (although at one point, she gets teary-eyed while delivering the same monologue given by every person who has ever used LSD). Morgan Freeman reads narration and looks old and pensive. There are Asian bad guys who shoot guns, get tattoos, and yell in Korean (Asians are the new Nazis, I guess).

On top of it all, the film is riddled with the most absurdly wrong technobabble ever. The magic blue drug is called PCH4, which is a synthetic form of a substance secreted by the mother during the 6th week of pregnancy and it causes the bones to form and "is like an atomic bomb going off in the womb." This is hogwash.

Other films blatantly stolen from include 2001, which has the blinking eyes and chimp-people stolen from it (along with a goodly amount of the plot), the aforementioned Matrix, and Akira.

While the special effects are good, they cannot compare to the better effects in the other movies out. The chimp people look crude compared to the chimpanzees of Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes. The floating people are shoddily done. Lucy plucking at cell-phone signals (written in technowriting lifted AGAIN from The Matrix) comes across as ridiculous when the scene cuts to profile.

Visually, the film is overblown and hamfisted. It is filled with overly structured shots, smash cuts, and extreme close-ups.

In summation, this film is terrible. It is "the thinking person's scifi movie" for the moron crowd. The central conceit is flawed. No idea in the movie stands up to any scrutiny. The execution is clumsy and ham-fisted. As a whole, the film is a derivative pastiche of far superior science fiction movies. To say that it shamelessly stole would be a complement. At 88 minutes, it is mercifully short.

If you must see it, see it in 3D and while very high. Otherwise, avoid this movie. It is terrible.