Review By Levi Tinker
Lucy tells the story of a young American woman (Scarlet Johansson) in Taiwan who gets roped into being used as a drug mule, by Richard, a guy whom she has only been dating for a little more than week. Richard is killed by A Korean mob boss/ Drug lord named Mr Jang (Choi Min-Sik) who he was working for. After Lucy sees Richard get shot, Jang has his men forecably surgically implant a bag of a new synthetic drug call CPH4 into Lucy’s stomach so that she can smuggle it into Europe.
After the surgery Lucy is assaulted by one of her captors causing the bag in her stomach to break and releasing the CPH4 into her blood stream. Lucy quickly discovers that she changing becoming stronger, more intelligent and even now has telepathic abilities as a result of the fact that the drug has actually caused her to begin using more of her brain’s capcity to function. She also learns that side effects of the drug can kill her as she uses more and more of her Brains abiltity. To help figure out a way to survive Lucy enlists the help of a french Police officer (Amar Waked) and Professor Norman(Morgan Freeman) who is well regarded for his knowledge of the human brain and its potential abilities. The last quarter of the movie sees Lucy losing more and more of her humanity and emotions as her knowledge and powers grow and as she Evolves into something that can control everything even teleporting through space and time into the distant past a billion years ago.
The main premise of Lucy is on its face quite Ludicrous, but that’s part of what makes it so much fun. Lucy is truly Scarlet‘s show, the movie succeeds in large part, because even though you know there is no way any of this can ever happen, Scarlet through her screen presence grabs you and doesn’t let you go or give you time to really focus on the believability of what your watching. And the excitement builds every time her ability more and more of her brain increases and her abilities increase. Morgan Freeman turns in another great performance as Professor Norman, while Choi is quite convincing as the villian Mr Jang.
There really is no one better when it comes to these types of films, in terms of directing than Luc Besson who has woven together an exciting frantic fast paced 90 mins.
Audio wise Lucy includes English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Spanish: DTS 5.1 French Canadian : DTS 5.1 For the purposes of this review I watched the film using the English DTS-HD track. This track really puts your sound system through a good work out, and makes great use of all the channels.
Special Features are a bit sparse, leaving the movie to really speak for its self. But there are two features.
The Evolution of Lucy (16 minutes): a behind the scenes look at the making of the film with director Luc Besson and stars Scarlet Johansson, Morgan Freeman and Choi Min-Sik
Cerebral Capacity: The True Science of Lucy (9 minutes): This short featurette is actually quite funny considering how outlandish the entertaining premise behind Lucy is. It features Besson and Freeman sharing their thoughts and insights into the science of Lucy along with a few real life experts in the field of Cerebral study.
Overall a fun fast paced 90 mins of pure entertainment, Lucy is not be missed. Definitely one of Luc Besson’s most entertaining female driven action films since Le Femme Nikita, I would love to see the idea expanded upon some more perhaps in the way that the Television series Nikita expanded upon Le Femme Nikita. Like Nikita, Lucy would definitely make for a great season of Television.