Lucy

Movie Name: Lucy
Year of Release: 2014

Director: Luc Besson

Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Min-sik Choi, Amr Waked, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Analeigh Tipton, Jan Oliver Schroeder
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi

Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 5

Synopsis:

"Lucy" is the latest directorial effort from the always prolific Luc Besson. It comes after the mediocre "The Family", and focuses on the story of Lucy, a young American woman studying in Taiwan. Lucy erroneously gets involved with the local criminal underground, and is used as a drug mule for an experimental drug that is being smuggled throughout Europe. However Lucy is violently beaten, which causes a rupture on the drugs that she's carrying. This rupture produces side effects throughout her body, particularly in her brain, which starts increasing capability at a geometric rate. With her new found capabilities, Lucy seeks out Professor Norman, a specialist in brain knowledge, while simultaneously evading the criminals in her pursuit.
Luc Besson has become known in the recent years as a writer and producer of action films, that have become quite successful, but somewhat formulaic - namely "The Transporter", "Taken" and "Colombiana", to name but a few. "Lucy" has some faint contacts with his previous female centric action film "La Femme Nikita" (from 1990), but unlike the latter one, "Lucy" does not contain much development about the character - it focuses on the development of the human brain and how the concept of being human evolves accordingly. The film is scarce in character or story development, presenting mostly ideas and some interesting action set pieces. Scarlett Johansson manages to create an interesting character, going from a scared young woman, to an individual that is questioning herself, her humanity and gaining a sense of knowledge that is unparalleled. It's an interesting parallel to her character in Jonathan Glazer's "Under the Skin", and ultimately she gives the film the depth and authenticity that it has. This is an interesting concept, one that deserved a bit more development.