It appears that now the idea that humans can only use 10% of their brain will be used in many, many more movies now that Limitless has happened… and I guess now they will star Morgan Freeman. I very much enjoy Limitless and think that it is a very underrated and smart movie. As for Lucy, I can say that it’s not a copy off of Limitless…
In Lucy, a rather air-headed woman studying
in an Asian country I believe to be China is forced into a very dark drug deal.
The drug these dangerous people are dealing is new and very powerful. When the
drug is accidently sent into the veins of Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), it is
found out that the drug slowly enables the person who take it to use 100% of
their brain. This unlocks abilities mankind has never seen before, and as Lucy
is slowly able to use more and more of her brain, we see what she can do. After
she starts being able to use more of brain than 10%, she turns on her captors
and seeks out a scientist (Morgan Freeman) to help her figure out what to do
with this power.
This is a briskly-paced,
action-packed thriller that I cannot say bored me. The film’s slightly short
runtime really makes it compressed so that the audience will never get bored.
As a form of entertainment, I cannot quite say that this film succeeded for me,
but it will for other people. I was not bored by the film, but I did not feel
thrills in the film. I wasn’t that interested either. I cannot quite say that I
enjoyed watching it, but I wasn’t bored. I was somewhere in the middle. People
who find this concept interesting, like action in movies, and can overlook a
film’s flaws have a good chance of liking this movie. However, I cannot quite recommend
seeing this over other movies that are out.
In the
movie, the “character” of Lucy is just a plot device. There is no development
in the beginning at all, and once Lucy gets this power, she uses it to kill
many innocent people. I don’t know how I’m supposed to connect to this “character”
and like her if she just kills random people. Rewind ten minutes and she was
crying in a room full of people who don’t speak English with a briefcase full
of something that is very dangerous… and she is supposed to open it. I think we
were supposed to sympathize with her then.
During the
first ten minutes of the film, they use a lot of… imagery, I guess… of animals
doing things that represent what’s happening to her. A mouse about to eat the
cheese on a mouse trap… a zebra getting chased down by a jaguar, then getting
killed. These things didn’t add to the movie at all. I guess the filmmakers
were going for visual metaphors, but it isn’t a visual metaphor when it’s that
what’s happening with the animals is supposed to represent what’s happening to
her. That’s what this whole movie is: spoon feeding information directly into
the audiences’ mouth.
Right before
Lucy gets this drug in her system, we see Morgan Freeman (Morgan Freeman) giving
a presentation on… you guessed it! That humans can only access 10% of their
brain, and if they can access more, they can unlock new abilities. This is so
we can know exactly what was happening to Lucy. During this presentation, we
see shots of animals, landscapes, environments… things that Morgan Freeman’s
talking about. This is so we can hear the audio and see these things at the
same… to compress the film more. Sometimes during this scene it seems like Luc
Besson (writer/direction) was doing something for this science class.
As Lucy
unlocks more parts of her brain, we get to see what percentage she is at by the
film cutting to a text that says what percentage she’s at. When something
happens to her a bit later in the film, we cut back to a part in Morgan Freeman’s
report to explain what’s happening…
As far as
Johannson’s performances goes, I’d like to say that she was good in the film,
but all I can say is that she is trying. There’s nothing for her to go off of.
The dialogue is very inane, silly, and is only used as a plot device. And Luc
Besson’s direction is no better. Each scene feels like it’s so poorly put
together. The acting comes off as bad. Almost each shot seems isolated. The
actors look they aren’t talking to each other, but at each other.
One thing I can
say is that sometimes during the action sequences I thought the camerawork was
good. There are some panning shots that actually did boost the film’s quality
and started to possibly engross me in what was going on… until they cut. After
they cut, it’d be the same as it was before. Besson should’ve just made every
scene a one-shot.
Near the
end, more of the sci-fi elements of the film kick in, and I say that’s the best
part. The science fiction isn’t exactly original, but I found it interesting and
some of visuals were fun to look at.
I’m sad to
say that now that I’ve said these compliments, I have no more to say, just more
flaws. This isn’t an awful movie. It isn’t terribly boring. It’s just poorly
written and mostly poorly directed. Everything, including the “characters”, is
used as a plot device. The dialogue is all used as a plot device. The film is
only interested in its plot. The movie of science fiction and action is not
done well. As far as the action goes, the plot for it very silly and I was not
able to suspend disbelief. The good aspects of the sci-fi do not save it. The action
is neither engaging nor interesting; I didn’t care what happened next in the
film.
As far as Lucy goes, it was a letdown to me. The
dialogue is only used to further the plot, and it’s not interesting. All of the
characters are throwaway, there’s no material for the actors, and the action is
ridiculous. The film was not interesting to me, although it didn’t bore me. The
direction in the film was mostly poor, but there were times that it caught my
attention. And there were some stronger sci-fi elements towards the end.
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