Director: Luc Besson; Screenwriter: Luc Besson; Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Choi Min-sik, Amr Waked, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Analeigh Tipton; Running time: 89 mins; Certificate: 15
Luc Besson flits very easily between the sublime and the ridiculous, gifting the world with Léon in the early days of his career before proceeding to make visually striking, utterly silly action thrillers like The Fifth Element, Taxi and The Transporter series (as writer/producer). Lucy falls squarely into the second category; a screwball sci-fi caper with Besson going full speed ahead into far-out territory. Perversely though, it's that willingness to stretch beyond all logic and reason that keeps you watching.
His opening gambit is a damned good one, however, with Scarlett Johansson's titular American college girl getting roped into a drugs smuggling deal by her latest squeeze in Taipei, clueless about the contents of the briefcase he chains to her wrist. Besson milks every bit of tension out of her face/off with Korean gangsters and Johansson makes the most of it, too, because these early scenes are the only ones in which she is required to act. A package of super-concentrated CPH4 is implanted in her abdomen only to burst, giving her superhuman powers and, at the same time, draining her of all human emotion.
She describes the heightened sensations of the world around her in memorable, penetrating close-up before Besson puts the pedal to the metal with a series of CGI-enhanced car chases and shoot-outs. Morgan Freeman occasionally slows the action as Professor Norman, delivering a long-winded lecture on the human brain and its hidden capabilities. That's for our edification, except the idea that we only use a small percentage of our cerebral capacity is not a scientific fact. Still, that is the least of the wild speculation that makes up the framework of Besson's delirious plot.
He punctuates the story with percentage values, representing the increase in Lucy's brain power over the course of a day which, she calculates, is about as long as she has left to live before meltdown. For no good reason, she devotes this time to finding the other drugs mules and Norman, even though his knowledge is, at this point, insignificant compared with her own. Her Korean adversaries led by Choi Min-sik (the original Oldboy) are also no match for Lucy. The more powerful she becomes, the less she has to try, brushing bad guys aside with not even a wave of her hand, just simple mind control. The effects are flamboyant and the pacing is swift, so these scenes remain energetic despite being vacuous.
Besson is audacious, bending time and space at [Lucy's] will with comic effect - in the sense that it's funny and reminiscent of a kitsch cartoon strip - only pausing briefly every now and then for a bit of philosophical musing.
As Lucy's grey matter is juiced up to over 50%, the question of what will happen to her is no longer relevant and it's impossible to empathise with a virtual robot (even Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator had a small spark of humanity). Instead, the intrigue lies in what she might be capable of at 60, 70, 80 and the full 100. Besson is audacious, bending time and space at her will with comic effect - in the sense that it's funny and reminiscent of a kitsch cartoon strip - only pausing briefly every now and then for a bit of philosophical musing. His reach exceeds his grasp by a long way, but then he clearly isn't interested in a proper meditation on what it means to be alive. It's all about the kicks.