Lucy – Movie Review
Lucy – R
Release Date: Fri 25 Jul 2014
Lucy is not an easy movie to recommend. It’s concept is interesting, and the direction and performances are fantastic. If you’re the type of person that can’t ignore the broken science that starts from the fallacy that humans only use 10% of their brain and just gets more ludicrous from there, you won’t enjoy the film. You’ll be laughing out loud at pretty much everything Morgan Freeman’s “Dr. Scientist” character says.
On the other hand, if you can look past the pseudo science (and it does require effort) there’s a really entertaining movie here. Luc Besson’s trademark combination of killer action, dark comedy and delicate hopefulness come through. There are parts that remind me of many other favorites of his including The Fifth Element and La Femme Nikita.
Lucy asks you to think about the kinds of things we’d be able to do as we reach our full potential as humans and there is ultimately a message of hope in it. Scarlett Johansson does a great job of rooting her humanity in the early scenes that her transformation is very palpable. I came away wishing the concept could have been delivered in a more esoteric way – maybe the incongruity of the science to the fiction would have bothered me less in an anime.
Jeremiah, Matthew, Cal and I saw it in the theater had a discussion in the car:
The trailer made it seem oddly racist. Not only are all the villains Asian, but there’s the scene with her asking if the local cab drivers (or just people near cars?) speak English, and she just shoots the one that doesn’t. It just came across like the movie was going to be about her killing all Asians.
Aside from that, I can at least say that despite the heinous pseudo-science, I at least like that they took it to absolutely ridiculous extremes. For some reason, that actually makes it a bit more palatable for me…