LUC BESSON DIRECTS SCARLETT JOHANSSON IN LUCY

year: 2014 rating: ***

When writer/director Luc Besson does science-fiction, one gets the impression he prefers rising intentionally above the audience...

So now he’s created the perfect starlet in Scarlett Johansson as LUCY, starting out as the naïve girlfriend of a passive/aggressive jerk with a dangerous occupation in Taiwan...

More than sporadically, Besson compares Lucy's place in humanity to the animal kingdom by showing clips of nature coinciding with her particular situation, escalating wildly as she’s given the forced task to deliver a briefcase to mobsters, and then hide the contents of a mysterious blue drug inside her very own guts. 

Once the drug leaks from the bag and flows through her bloodstream, Lucy begins using more (and more and more) than the required 10% of the brain, turning into a Marvel like superhero that can lift objects and project her image onto computers screens and… sky's the limitless... But all those powers aside, Lucy has one real mission: to seek her own hydraulic revenge against the Asian mobster who "hired" her in the first place. Meanwhile, the title cards and animal imagery become repetitive. Lucy, also the name given to the first female Ape/Neanderthal, is evolving quickly: We get the point already!

Morgan Freeman’s wise Professor Norman keeps the expository information in check, teaching us flawed mortals stuff the nature clips don’t make entirely clear, morphing Lucy into what Johnny Depp’s limp TRANSCENDENCE attempted... but with guns blasting MATRIX style, it's a far more entertaining ride. And before long, you’ll forget the actual story evolves slower than our heroine, who, becoming floating specks of computerized dust particles, is still completely unbreakable.

One can only imagine if Lucy had her own bombastic vengeance-driven story without all the science: KILL BILL 3, anyone?