Lucy

Lucy is a film based on the myth of humanity only using 10% of our brain power. It is Luc Besson's first self-written and directed action flick in a long, long time as such it feels very nostalgic, like an ode to his early work. Having said that, Lucy feels like a like a missed opportunity, more of a nostalgic mess rather than heartwarming memory of Luc Besson's work from the 90s.

In the film, Scarlett Johansson plays Lucy, an American student on vacation in Taipei. One hungover morning she is forced to do a mysterious delivery by her week long boyfriend. If a massive hangover and a boyfriend who looks like he sleeps in a dumpster aren't bad enough, soon enough Lucy finds herself face to face with a psychotic Korean mob boss. One thing leads to another and she wakes up in a bed having been turned into a carrying case for some kind of future-science drug. Yada-yada-yada, drug bag bursts in her stomach and she goes all batshit crazy looking for a mixture of revenge and more of the drug. Had this been the entire driving force of the movie, it would have been fantastic. Scarlett Jo, kicking ass, Chok-Min Sook going all psycho on everyone, Morgan Freeman narrating the whole thing. Seriously think about all of that for a moment, it is a dream come true. It is too bad then, that at the halfway mark the film turns into dull techno babble and pseudo-science with the  action relegated to background as if they were some old drapes.

The action scenes are probably the most disappointing part of the film. Besson has choreographed some grand mayhem in the past and has even fostered most this generation’s action franchises in one way or the other. Kiss of The Dragon, Fifth Element, Leon and the rest of his old work all had this insanely beautiful violence that was paced perfectly and was wrought with tension.  Sadly in Lucy, they feel like they were an afterthought. Almost as if the script was written with lengthy passages of sciency sounding bullshit, with place holders labeled, action scene here, scattered along every few pages. I can see Besson sitting at his work desk wondering if he could turn A Beautiful Mind into an action film. But not a loud and furious, all engrossing gunplay type of action film, something  more along the lines of timid and restrained Victorian gunplay.

Chok-Min Sook plays the dastardly villain Jang. You know he's psychotic because he is introduced right after he brutalizes two random people in the washroom. A one dimensional villain in this type of movie is fine. It rallies the audience behind the hero and if the role and actor mix well, a one dimensional villain transcends cliché and becomes a magnetic force. In this way, Jang is very reminiscent of Gary Oldman's Zorg and Stansfield, from the Besson classics; The Fifth Element and Leon, respectively. Sadly, where the Oldman was given room to breathe, flesh out his characters madness' and eat more scenery than Meryl Streep when she feels like winning an Oscar, Sook is left only crumbs too feast on. His scenes diminish as the movie unfolds, going from full on moments where he sucks in all the attention from every viewer like some angry black hole looking for more food, to sitting in a car brooding like some generic everyman villain Hollywood loves these days. If the villain was generic it would have been fine, but the problem is that he is not. There is obviously plenty of fun to have with him and we get glimpses of it throughout the movie. Sadly those glimpses are just that, glimpses into something that could've been, instead of the yawn worthy movie bad guy number 6 we get.  Who knows, maybe when the inevitable super special 100% edition is released we will get to see more of Jang and his absurd lunacy. At the end of the day though, Besson can and has done better which makes Jang’s waste an even bigger shame.

Then we have Morgan Freeman, this is his second strike of the year after the shitfest that was Transcendence. Yet again Freeman is relegated too spewing pseudo-science while wearing some proffesory garb. Yes we know, Morgan Freeman sounds wise and insightful and wearing those jackets make him look like the most dapper old man this side of the 1950s. Problem is, even Morgan Freeman can't turn shit into gold. Besson, Pfister and Freeman have tried that twice and failed miserably both times. It's almost as if Freeman doesn't want to narrate my dreams anymore, so he just chooses the scripts with the dumbest science shit in the hopes that I won't be soothed by his voice anymore. Nice try Freeman, but I don't give up that easily.

Lastly and most importantly we have the titular Lucy, who starts off as a badass, shooting anyone in her way, cabbies, cancer victims, mobsters etc. Yet as the story progresses and she becomes more powerful she somehow becomes less and less badass. This though is not the most troubling part. The troubling part is that as she becomes the most powerful human to ever exist, literally, she requires men to take care of her more and more. Her first act as a superhuman is to clear a room of villains and shrug off a bullet wound. That's the movie I wanted to see. By the end of the film she requires regular men to hold off Jang and his army for her. Narratively this makes no sense either, because two scenes earlier, she effortlessly disabled six of his men with a wave of her wrist. On top of that she drags around the male cop just to have someone hold her hand and 'remind' her of what she used to be. Leon and Fifth Element both had limp romance angles but they worked. They worked because the film established them properly in their own world. In Leon, it was awkward and felt quite off, but it matched the tone of the film. In The Fifth Element it was cheesy and light, just like the movie. In Lucy, the romance is just shoved into the film, like amateurs filming a fisting session. Why would a god need some bumbling French cop to hold off some two bit mobsters, when she could just as easily make all those mobsters float off into the sky?

This all being said, the movie is not without its merits. The score is terrific; it’s vibrant and heart pumping. It is also part of the feeling of nostalgia that washes over fans of Besson's early work. This is all due to Eric Serra being the composer, the genius behind The Fifth Element. The score does exactly what any score should, heighten each scene it's attached too. Serra's work takes even the limpest of scenes and brings drama too it, like a really good athlete trying to carry his team.

On top of this, the cinematography and art direction is also top notch. The cinematography evokes a great deal of Leon.  It feels kind of like going back to your childhood home, if that childhood home was the setting of a love story between a brain damaged hitman and an eleven year old girl. This feeling of nostalgia also lets you disregard certain weaknesses in the action scenes, namely that they get weaker as the film progresses.

Finally the colour scheme works really well. It's crisp and clean and matches the tone of each progressive scene quite well. The use of colours is not original or even all that creative really, borrowing aspects from all over the place. Instead the scheme feels finely tuned, as the work of a master should.

Overall the film is a clashing mess of two separate films. The first half is exactly what the trailers sell you on. Scarlett Jo, getting drugged up and going Kung-Fu with a side of gunplay on everyone. The second half of the film is a pseudo-sciency mess of outdated science myths with shitty philosophical pondering. Besson enthusiasts will find some joy in the nostalgia, but will be left remembering a master's glory and ruminating on his fall. Everyone else will sit down watch the movie and give a resounding shrug of indifference.