This is topic Lucy in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 08-02-2014, 05:55 PM:
 
Luc Besson used to be a good director, producing quality movies such as The Big Blue and La Femme Nikita before hitting his peak with Leon (AKA The Professional), one of my all-time favourite films. After the crazy fun of The Fifth Element and the box office bomb of Joan of Arc, Besson devoted his career to half-baked action movies with the odd kiddie flick thrown in. Lucy is almost a return to form.

Based on the premise that we only harness 10% of our total brain capacity, the film fantasises about the what-ifs of unleashing the remaining 90%. Which is precisely what happens to the titular character (Scarlett Johansson), an involuntary drug mule whose mission goes horribly wrong. When her illicit payload ruptures inside her body, the highly experimental drug courses through her bloodstream and transforms her into Natasha Romanoff with super powers - think Carrie as a superhero in the Marvell universe.

The film is nicely edited, intercutting snippets of abstract footage which betray Lucy's thoughts at key points throughout the film and this works well to add tension to the proceedings. And there's a nice philosophy about the human condition creating physical laws so as to reduce the unfathomable scale of the universe to a size our 10% brains can understand, which is probably not far from the truth.

The logical flaws in the film mount in number but the action is so engaging that it gets away with it. This is fantasy after all and Besson is afforded the right to create the rules of his own universe. If you're not enjoying the movie, however, these flaws will likely be glaring failures.

If it sounds silly it's because it is but it's also bucket loads of fun. Is the film's premise based on any kind of science fact? I don't know and who cares? This is pure fantasy and marks Besson's return to the crazy fun frolics of The Fifth Element with perhaps a little - okay, a lot - less crazy.

8 out of 10
 
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 08-02-2014, 08:49 PM:
 
"Legendary" French writer and director rips off the premise from Limitless (2011) and transforms it into some kind of wacky "sci-fi" fantasy thriller.

Stu seemingly had a better time than me. I didn't really get the notion that this was supposed to be a full-out fantasy flick until it was too late... My synapses handling the "logic" part were still firing at maximum overdrive and they produced nothing but FATAL: Do not compute messages flooding my brain, mostly trough the second half of the movie...

Also, my visual cortex was firing WARNING: Bad special effects detected messages several times. This Walking with Dinosaurs scene at the end reminded me of A Sound of Thunder (2005), not a very fond memory I may add.
 
Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 08-04-2014, 02:27 AM:
 
This was a good movie until the stupid ending. It's tough to recommend this one.
 
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 08-04-2014, 06:39 AM:
 
Wow, isn't this pretty much the same concept as the Johnny Depp foray into this subject, TRANCENDENCE? You know...just unleash the full potential of the human mind and wow, assuming that mind isn't a dumbass to begin with...as Sam would say, wackiness ensues? Hopefully this one is better executed that the Depp vehicle.
 
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 08-04-2014, 09:49 AM:
 
In Transcendence, Johny Depp (I already forgot his character name) uploads his brain to a supercomputer and from then on, "wackyness ensues". Lucy get's an overdose of some new kind of drugs that was put in her stomach against her will as means of covert transportation. The premise is the same as Limitless (2011), the only difference here is the vengeance factor, as Lucy didn't choose for this to happen.

Whereas Transcendence at least tried to give it all a somewhat scientific footing (and miserably fails at doing so), this one doesn't even try.

Spoiler Alert - Click to Toggle

 
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-01-2014, 08:59 PM:
 
I always get a kick out of movies' vision of a futuristic thing. In this case she transforms into a "supercomputer" but yet, it looks more like huge globs of mold, and climaxes with the fact that all of this accumulated knowledge apparently is condensed onto....a USB drive? (Must be USB 3.0 I guess.)

I also didn't quite understand why being very smart would allow her to do things like suspend gravity, or develop super hearing, or receive radio waves, or make people pass out. And I couldn't understand why super intelligence would rob her of all personality. But whatever.

That said, I was entertained immensely. Did it make sense? Of course not. But was it fun? Definitely. And a visual feast to boot. I really enjoyed the various "inside the brain (or body)" scenes.

The way people were killed so casually throughout the show was kind of disturbing though. I wonder what the body count was for this movie?
 




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