Review: Lucy (2014)

Snap Judgment: A passionate, fumbling love affair between a Hollywood action blockbuster and a European arthouse flick. It's that couple at a party that clearly can't get enough of each other, but makes most of the other guests feel awkward and inclined to sidle out of the room. How you feel about the first 10 minutes of this movie is a good indication of what you will think of it overall. Scarlett Johansson (Lucy) is coerced/tricked by her new boyfriend into being an unwitting drug mule when he snaps a handcuff briefcase to her wrist. The film intercuts the scene of her entering the hotel to deliver the briefcase with flashes of cheetahs stalking gazelles. When the drug lord's thugs surround her and whisk her upstairs, the cheetahs catch a gazelle and drag its dead body away to devour. OMG, you guys, do you, like, think that Lucy is, like, the gazelle or something? And the thugs are, like, lumbering, muscly cheetahs? 

Some will think this cinematic device is clever and deep. They will love this movie. Others will think that this is a film student's eye-rollingly overdone attempt to be clever and deep. Like me, they will ultimately be disappointed by this movie. 

Built on the clearly debunked urban legend that humans only use 10% of their brain, the drug Lucy is muling gets into her system and lets her use more and more of her brain capacity. This instantly makes her emotions alien but also gives her awesome super powers (She can move things with her mind! She can knock people out with her mind! She can scroll through data! She can time travel (?!?)! She can change her hair color at will!)  and the awkward ability to remember breastfeeding as an infant. 


This movie seemed to be 90% looking cool and 10% trying to get across some nonsensical message. One of my pet peeves is the supposed hero causing massive civilian causalities through uncaring recklessness. Lucy speeds through the streets of Paris  to get to more of the drug before the bad guy mooks do. Around her cars crash, flip, and smash, civilians scatter and are likely crushed or battered. Dozens of people are maimed and killed. Lucy gives no shits. Later on, there's a final shootout between the French police and the Korean drug gang. Lucy ignores it all, too busy providing technobabble to a bunch of awed geniuses and exploring the mysteries of the universe. Lucy could kill all the bad guys from afar with her mind, before they even enter the building most likely, which would take almost no time. But she doesn't. Because she gives no shits. You could attempt to rationalize plot and character reasons for WHY these events have to take place, but I would bet you all my worldly possessions that the actual thinking was: (1) high speed car chases are cool and (2) massive shoot-outs are cool.  

And what was Lucy doing that was so important that she let good men (and women) die for it? We don't know! She leaves behind a supercomputer that has...knowledge...and stuff...on it. Has she provided the cure for cancer? A design for a cold fusion machine? A plan for the reversal of global warming? The only thing she tells the scientists is that everything is connected (which John Travolta already told us in Phenomenon) and that existence is only proven through time. Thanks Lucy! I'm sure all the families and loved ones of the dead really feel like the sacrifice is worth it now! At the end Lucy nonexplains that "Life was given to us a billion years ago, and now you know what to do with it." Umm...become an inhuman super powered godlike entity who cares more about knowledge than people? Or something? Actually I think the point she was trying to make is that the greedy pursuit of money/power is meaningless and there is more to life than that. Which again is NOT HELPFUL because humans have been told that again and again and yet most never listen. If I remember my Sunday school lessons correctly, Jesus Christ, the son of God, came to Earth and spread that same message. And being told by a divine being that people should turn away from a pursuit of money and power made everyone agree and become better human beings and there was no more war or destruction or murder ever again...oh wait. No, no it didn't.  Sooooo....what was the point of Lucy's lack of compassion for anyone and willingness to sacrifice everyone else for her singleminded pursuit? 

And if Lucy was going to be a cold-hearted psychopath, the least she could do is be GOOD at it. She leaves most of her enemies alive and burning to come after her. Don't wound what you can't kill, Lucy. It is always the worst idea in action movies to leave your one-dimensional villains and henchmen alive. Again, I think this was just the director wanting to keep the bad guys around so he could have more cool fight scenes. There was honestly no other purpose. 

Also, I never realized this before, but Morgan Freeman talks. so. slowly. with. so. many. pauses. He may have the richest, most sonorous voice in the known universe, but when you are up against a time limit and he is doing nothing but rephrasing facts he's been told or spouting pseudoscience or pointing out the obvious (she's building a supercomputer!), all I want to do is shake him and shout: "SPEAK MORE QUICKLY MORGAN FREEMAN!" 

Grade: B-

Final Verdict: If you liked The Tree of Life but wished it had more fight scenes and car chases, then this is the movie for you! Seriously, though, I liked that it was a different take on the typical action film, but thought it was overly pretentious and lacked any real point except looking cool and trying to sound smart. 

If you like this, watch: Phenomenon, Limitless