I Hate 'Lucy'

Good morning, students. Open your textbooks to page 350. Today we're gonna talk about something that's been quite a mystery to us all as human beings: the brain. I touched on this a bit last class when we discussed the pre-operational stage of a child's development. It has been said that humans only use about 10% of their brain therefore leaving 90% of cognitive potential untouched. Jean Piaget developed a theory that states that the there are stages of development humans go through that continually helps them to think and process information in new and more complex ways. The first stage of Piaget's theory is the sensorimotor stage which basically lasts from when a person is bored to when he is about two years old. Humans tend to lack logic and reasoning....

Bored yet? Welcome to the biology lecture you didn't wanna sit through. Welcome to 'Lucy'.

Oh and, no bathroom breaks during class. Thank you.

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Luc Besson's 'Lucy' follows Lucy (played by my second wife Scarlett Johansson) who ends up getting caught in the middle of a dark deal which results in her turning into a carrier for a new line of synthetic drugs. As if things weren't already bad, the drugs end up leaking into her system and the weird changes allow her to slowly unlock the full potential of her mind. With her new powers, Lucy seeks revenge on those who took her, all while seeking a bit of help from Professor Norman (played by Morgan Freeman) and police captain Pierre Del Rio (played by Amr Waked). Yea there are some big names here but sadly that doesn't make this drab movie experience any better. It could've been anyone playing their rolls and it wouldn't have been a difference. I actually wished that someone else played Scarlett Johansson's and Morgan Freeman's roles. Anyone else really.

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'Lucy' builds it's plot on the age old theory that humans only use 10% of their brain. Even though the premise is completely false, this film stretches this myth to it's limit and beyond....and beyond again. Needless to say, this is a sci-fi film. Like I said in my review of 'Transformers: Age of Extinction', there's a certain level of mysticism you come to expect with movies that defy reality but sometimes even that line is crossed and things just stop making any sort of sense whatsoever. 'Lucy' had way, way too many of those moments. I smacked my forehead wishing I had a V8 for more than half of this movie. For example, there was a scene where Lucy walked into a public hospital with a loaded gun complete with a silencer. You would think that if you're gonna take a gun into a hospital you should at least hide it somewhere. Nope. Lucy had it in her hand the entire time for all to see and not a single person in that building (even security) noticed. It wasn't until she busted a cap in someone, got a surgery, gave some medical advice to some Koreans, had a phone call with her mom, talked with a few people and walked out that people took notice of something fishy going on. As Lucy continues to unlock more and more of her brain she starts to bend reality and gains superpowers. Don't expect any clear explanation of this. At 20% she no longer feels pain and can somehow see through walls...somehow...but for some reason can't figure out what the giant bag of drugs is in her stomach. At 40% Lucy can just about control people....somehow...and gain access to any television or cellphone she wants...somehow. At 80% she can basically travel through time with a wave of her hand...somehow...but can't undo any damage caused by the Korean mob chasing her. See what I mean? It really starts to get muddled and confusing. You'd think by 70% she could at least teleport or fly but nope. The most she can do is drive terribly and cause Bay-like mayhem and turmoil...somehow...by just weaving through traffic.

Yea, it crossed the line big time.

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Okay here's the thing that bothered me the most. Scarlett Johansson wasn't the best thing in this movie.

Let that sink in.

The amazing almost as perfect as Jennifer Lawrence Scarlett Johansson was not the best thing in this movie. 'Lucy' is no doubt one of her worst movies. Her acting wasn't convincing, it straight up bordered on annoying from the get go. There's no character development for Lucy so you're stuck in your theatre seat wondering why on earth you should even care for this woman. The film tries to mask some of this by putting Scarlett in a see-through shirt complete with a bold black bra as she goes around bending reality to her will. It's an obvious and pathetic cry to introduce some sort of sex appeal but it doesn't work. At all. You know a film isn't good if it goes out of it's way to make Scarlett Johansson boldly sexy and even that doesn't save it. That's sad my friends, really sad. Things have changed and it makes me wonder if sex is even selling anymore. Anyway, that's another blog post for another time. Even the-voice-of-God Morgan Freeman seemed useless. It's almost as if nobody tried. I would rather some up-and-coming no-name actors and actresses take the place of Morgan Freeman and Scarlett Johansson to save them from the embarrassment of doing this on screen. Total embarrassment.

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Remember that boring biology lesson at the beginning of this post? Well there's about another half an hour of that in this film. Morgan Freeman plays Professor Norman, the leading authority on the human brain who has no concrete evidence for about 90% of his research. 'Lucy' introduces you to a whole new world of information you could care less about. Complete with random clips of animals killing each other and mating (rather vividly), this makes things feel like an online lecture you have to take to get that homework assignment done that you were just too lazy to do. Theories here, Darwin there, random-philosophical-thoughts-that-make-no-sense here...it's a mess really and contributes nothing much to the plot. Everything gets tangled in an absolute mess and by the end you're questioning why you even paid to see this movie. Believe me, I'm still asking myself the same question.

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Okay there is one thing 'Lucy' did do right. Sorta. There were some gorgeous cinematic shots in there. Although they really had nothing much to do with the plot or anything else, they were pretty gorgeous to look at. There's a sequence in particular at the end where time passes and it's all a fluid, beautiful montage of different parts of the world through history (sorta). It's not really anything new or too spectacular but it does make you sit up in your seat and wanna pay attention for once in this movie. Also, as bad as this experience was, I was happy 'Lucy' didn't keep you prisoner such as 'Transformers: Age of Extinction'. The movie from start to finish is 90 minutes so it's not too long of a ride. This is one of the few times I've been happy that a movie is short. Any longer and you would've wished you were home watching the news and eating some cereal.

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Honestly, this movie sucked. It wasn't very good and I wasn't pleased with it at all. The previews baited me into thinking that I was going to see something cool, interesting and dynamic but instead I was given something that was bland, rushed and poorly put together. The combination of the loose plot, unbelievably stupid conveniences and pathetic attempt at sex appeal to cover up the holes left a poor taste in my mouth towards 'Lucy'. If you like your time and your money, don't watch this movie. I would suggest you go and watch something else, or just stay home and watch Netflix. Trust me, it's a better use of your time.