Film Review: Lucy is daft but fun

Bobby Townsend reviews the moderately ludicrous new Luc Besson flick:

There is enjoyable irony to the fact that a film about the potential capabilities of the human brain requires absolutely minimal thought from its audience. That’s not to say that Lucy is a turkey. The 90-minute romp and certainly the finest work from Luc Besson in a long time. That’s not saying much though, to be honest. Long gone are his La Femme Nikita, Leon and The Fifth Element days. However, in 2014, this silly-yet-fun blockbuster is surely better than we could have hoped for from the writer/director.

Also, Lucy continues Besson’s penchant for portraying tough female action heroes. Here we have Scarlett Johansson playing the eponymous lead and doing it very well. She makes the transition from terrified wrong-place/wrong-time victim to serious badass – all bosoms and sultry looks – in an action-thriller that tracks her journey as she accidentally ingests drugs that increase her brain’s capacity.

It’s an interesting idea, delivered fairly unsubtly. Morgan Freeman plays the Basil Exposition role as Johansson’s brain gets bigger and bigger and bigger and the film gets dafter and and dafter and dafter. But the implausibility and plot-holes are papered over by the the fact that the film is nice to look at, well paced and – importantly – we care what happens to Lucy (while also wanting to see her do more awesome shit with her newfound skillz). It’s hard to tell whether the film’s denouement is really brilliant or really terrible, but it’s certainly interesting, as Lucy’s brain hurtles towards 100 percent.

Leave your puny brain at the door and enjoy Lucy for the fun that it is.

Review by Bobby Townsend.