DVD Review: Lucy

Lucy
[DVD Lucy]

Another fascinating and highly-stylized thriller from director/writer Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, The Professional or Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and so many more).

Scarlett Johansson stars as Lucy, a scared young woman in Hong Kong whose “boyfriend” gets her involved, against her will, in a smuggling conspiracy. After a brutal meeting with a drug kingpin, she awakens to discover that while she was unconscious, she has had a pouch surgically inserted into her, which will be removed after she flies it to its final destination. Unfortunately for both her, and the men using her, a beating she receives causes the pouch, filled with an experimental new street drug, to leak, and her body begins to absorb the contents. Those contents allow her to begin to more fully access her brain’s full potential — beyond the typical 10% potential used by most humans. As she plots her revenge against the men who kidnapped and abused her, she realizes she needs help, and contacts Professor Norman (Morgan Freeman), whose pioneering work on human brain potential may be able to help her cope with the massive changes she is going through.

As Lucy’s potential continues to grow, she becomes less and less human with each jump in consciousness, and develops unimaginable powers. Meanwhile, Professor Norman and his colleagues wish to help her, while also studying her, and various underworld forces wish to either capture or eliminate her. The stunt work and special effects work in Lucy are superb, and as Lucy’s humanity continues to decrease, the filter through which we view her vantage point on reality begins to feel surreal.

The performances are all excellent — Johansson, after initially being a terrified mouse, turns into a lethally cold and unemotional machine. Freeman is fun as the professor who is seeing his theories come to life before his eyes. Min-sik Choi as Mr. Jang, the main bad guy, is appropriately scary, and Amr Waked as a French cop that gets pulled into Lucy’s exploits is great as well. The production design and cinematography were all outstanding. My only complaint is that Lucy’s progression into something more-than-human seems unreasonably rapid and hard to believe. But — if you can bury your sense of disbelief and go with the story, Lucy is a fast-paced action thriller with scifi overtones and definitely worth watching!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try any of Luc Besson’s other films, particularly The Fifth Element, The Professional or Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets]

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ] | [ official U.S. Lucy web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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