Lucy (Luc Besson)

[Rowland]

I never want to meet someone who takes issue with the scientific inaccuracy of this.

Scientific inaccuracies notwithstanding, there are any number of approaches one could take in demonstrating how unbelievably stupid this movie is, but that's some part of its charm, as it really does play like something written by a teenage boy (as Besson credibly claims he was when he wrote The Fifth Element), albeit one atypically respectful of women. Besson may have been better off jettisoning the brain percentage angle altogether, though the camp value of using Morgan Freeman in a lecture hall to justify it while cutting away to associative montages of footage from Samsara and animals fucking is pretty satisfying.

I don't recall the context, but does anyone remember the moment when a character says something along the lines of "think about it for a second" and the film actually cuts to a black, muted screen for a split second? Or did I just hallucinate this?

[Kurosawa Fan]

I don't recall that, but given everything else in the film, I feel like it has to be there.

[Boner M]

In case anyone didn't see it, here's Besson's note from the first page of the screenplay:

[max314]

That's hilarious.

[number8]

This is like Tree of Life for Idiots.

This should be on TV spots because it just made me want to see it.

[Spun Lepton]

Thanks Duke!

I envy those on this site who can condense their thoughts into a few short sentences and get their point across perfectly since I almost always set out to write those types of short blurbs, and yet they almost always end up turning into things that look way too long and once they're done. :lol:

So always glad to hear when they're not only cohesive but enjoyed as well.

Keep in mind, there are those of us who feel we're being to terse with our reviews. I sometimes wish I could be a little more eloquent and descriptive with my critiques. As always Henry, great write-up.

[TGM]

Keep in mind, there are those of us who feel we're being to terse with our reviews. I sometimes wish I could be a little more eloquent and descriptive with my critiques. As always Henry, great write-up.

Yeah, I'm always amazed/impressed when I see people who can really articulate just so many thoughtful insights on just about any movie. I can do so every now and then, but I'd say about 90% of the movies I see leave me with little more to say than either I liked it or I didn't.

[Mal]

This movie is so fucked up and enjoyed almost all of it. Sequel please.

[Stay Puft]

Tasha Robinson's review sums up my conflicted feelings perfectly:

And it’s ultimately a disappointment because it doesn’t do enough with that trope—it doesn’t approach it creatively enough to stand out from many similar films, and it doesn’t ultimately let viewers access or even understand what’s going on with its protagonist. It’s daring in some ways because it doesn’t take the obvious narrative paths, but the woolly headed roads it does head down aren’t entirely satisfying, either.

I didn't even mind the "10% of our brain" thing so much because of how Besson deploys it as a device to show her leveling up like in a videogame, or as readings of her power level (it's over 9000!). But the whole thing is played so loose w/r/t what her powers are or what she's specifically capable of at each level that it's not terribly interesting. It's disappointing to me mostly because of how it takes what should have been a setup for batshit cinematic hijinks and fails to whip up anything remotely exciting as either a drama or an action film (none of the exposition builds anything resembling a coherent worldview, and a boring car chase and Lucy making a few thugs levitate in the air is the extent of what Besson offers in the action department). By the end, I found myself missing the nature footage intercutting and Samsara-footage-stealing montages of the earlier segments. Lucy being told it's no big deal, she'll be fine, etc. and then cutting to an image of a mouse approaching a mouse trap made me chuckle harder than anything else that happened over the subsequent 80-ish minutes.

A lot of it is still ridiculously silly and fun, of course, but... I left the theatre thinking "that was it?" and that's not how I want to walk out of a theatre.

[Skitch]

Caught this at the dollar theater. It was decent, but the first half lagged. Way too much over-explaining. Subtlety like a brick to the face. I enjoyed the second half more than the first. Mixed bag for sure, but for the second time this week I find myself saying "I haven't really seen a flick like that before". Even with the odd pacing, I feel compelled to give it another shot when it (inevitably) hits Netflix.

[Morris Schæffer]

Never expect much from Besson, so this was a nice surprise. It's pretty out there, but the most amazing thing is that I very nearly started to believe. Johanson gives a good performance, Freeman has that way of making you believe whenever he's absorbing some extraordinary information from someone, in this case Lucy, as if he's truly, genuinely blown away by what he's heard.

[Sven]

Never expect much from Besson...

Why's that?

[Morris Schæffer]

Why's that?

His track record just doesn't make me foam at the mouth whenever a new Besson movie's coming out. He seems to make the same movies over and over again, the ones he produced are the same ones over and over again. He's a French assembly line. Even his high points Leon and The Fifth Element are more succesful because of its opulent sets, fx rather and chemistry between leads than inspired direction.

[Raiders]

His track record just doesn't make me foam at the mouth whenever a new Besson movie's coming out. He seems to make the same movies over and over again, the ones he produced are the same ones over and over again. He's a French assembly line.

This is very true, but what he writes and directs vs. what he produces and/or creates the concept for are vastly different. The ongoing brand of new wave Euro action films are certainly depressingly monotonous.

Even his high points Leon and The Fifth Element are more succesful because of its opulent sets, fx rather and chemistry between leads than inspired direction.

Not sure how that defines Leon at all, actually. And The Fifth Element is shit. Angel-A was his best... before this one.

[Pop Trash]

I finally watched Leon last year and found it pretty underwhelming considering the hype it has gotten since 1994.

[Morris Schæffer]

This is very true, but what he writes and directs vs. what he produces and/or creates the concept for are vastly different. The ongoing brand of new wave Euro action films are certainly depressingly monotonous.

Are different in terms of ideas and premise or different in terms of job description? I see the content he produces as an extension of what he wants to do, who he is and how far his ambition takes him (not far in other words).

Not sure how that defines Leon at all, actually. And The Fifth Element is shit. Angel-A was his best... before this one.

I know Besson directed Leon, but I don't necessarily think of it as a Besson film. Seems any number of decent directors could have made that and it's more the interplay between the leads that makes it engaging. Fifth Element has great visuals, but again the direction is merely ok.

[Dukefrukem]

Well, holy shit. This is way weirder and more ambitious than anything the marketing would like to let you realize.

Yeh, and I think it works against itself. I kinda wish it was just Taken meets Limitless. Instead we get this weird hybrid. I think I checked out after the plane bathroom scene.

[Henry Gale]

Yeh, and I think it works against itself. I kinda wish it was just Taken meets Limitless. Instead we get this weird hybrid. I think I checked out after the plane bathroom scene.

Ahaha, this may have been the exact moment I knew the movie was on a wavelength I wasn't even sure I had going on. Butt became cemented to seat.

The very fact that scene alone can exist in something that made $450 million+ worldwide gives me some odd sense of hope for mainstream action cinema. (If even one American director or studio looks to its insane flourishes and says, "Hey, if Lucy did what it did..." and tries to spiritually emulate it in some way, then everyone is better off for it.)

[Peng]

Yeah, I liked Taken well enough, but would be disappointed if I watched a film that is the combination of that and the initially energetic but ultimately generic Limitless (the premise opened possibilities so much, and then it took one of the least imaginative routes possible).

I think I had a goofy stupid grin throughout the second half of Lucy.

[Grouchy]

Wow, am I against the consensus here or what?

I guess I kind of admire the movie for not being afraid of being completely ridiculous, but that's more something I'm saying than something I'm actually feeling. It's one of the dumbest action films I've ever seen, and I don't mean because of the pseudo-science. 25 minutes into this movie Lucy could take on Superman and all she's up against is a band of Asian gangsters. There's no real tension and the stakes never go up in a satisfactory way. It could be an acceptable origin story for a character, but as a stand-alone film it didn't work for me.

[Irish]

I didn't connect with it either, for much the same reasons.

There's a scene about half way through where she develops Jedi powers-- she waves a hand and a bunch of gangsters fly into the air. Once she did that, my interest waned. Who cares about an invincible heroine?

The opening thirty minutes are fun. I wouldn't mind the film being this silly & stupid if it entertained on top of that. But there isn't a single set piece or action sequence here that's memorable.

I kinda agree with Morris, at least in the sense that, wow, Besson has become really, really lazy.

[Dukefrukem]

Yeh she developed her "powers" way too quickly I thought. It would have been cool if there were more Freeman and Lucy scenes where it leaves Freeman wondering WTF is going on.

I yayed this, mainly because I would watch it again if it were on HBO or FX, but i didn't think it was very well fleshed out.

[Winston*]

There's a bit in this movie where Scarlett Johannson's friend is talking about this super hot guy she slept with, and she has to clarify "he's not Chinese". What a weirdly extraneous bit of racism.

I liked the time travel bit at the end, but thought this was otherwise pretty stupid.

[Ezee E]

Ultimately, no. But I liked that it tried to at least create something different. The first thirty minutes are pure Besson, and once the CPH4 gets involved, it never is able to build the suspense or the tension that it once had.

It's a continuous "situation" followed by mind powers making for an easy solution. Besson's best skill is staging fun action scenes (why else are movies like Taken so enjoyable) and it never really occurs again. In movies like Taken, The Professional, Danny the Dog (?), the protagonist is usually overmatched. Never here.

Scarlett Johannson was considered to be one of the best actresses around until around 2005, in which her career projected her to one of the most bankable around. She played second fiddle in movies like The Prestige, Black Dahlia, Iron Man 2, and The Avengers. Her characters were merely there, but never given anything to work with. It wasn't until 2013's Don Jon that she started getting to play a lead/interesting character again. With this and Under the Skin, I can only hope there's more on the way. She's one of the best around.

I also got to give the movie props for having Choi Min-Sik as a lead villain.

[Sven]

This is a new favorite. Creatively bandies its inherent idiocies with so much energy, so much commitment, and way too many excellent set pieces to ignore. Surprised at how few are talking about the car chase sequence, which was completely novel. I also feel that its ScarJo's finest acting of her career. What a difficult role... that phone call with her mom is unbearably well-executed.