Lucy is about a woman named, in fact, Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) who gets tricked into carrying an experimental new drug for a gang in Taipei. When the drug is accidentally released into her body, it gives her superhuman powers as it unlocks more of her brain, gradually turning her into a seemingly omniscient being. And that’s pretty much it. Thanks for reading!

 

What? I need more words or it throws off the formatting of the poster? OK, gimme a minute…

The trouble with this movie is that it feels like there’s not much to it beyond the concept I outlined above. Which is a good concept, but also kind of thin. I like to imagine they filmed it and then realized they only had a forty-five minute movie.

As a result, there’s a lot of filler: clips from nature documentaries loosely analogous to what’s happening in the plot, a lecture by a professor (Morgan Freeman) who studies the human brain, lots of B-roll of Scarlett Johansson walking places in tight clothes, and an interminable car chase through the streets of Paris.

Car chases in general bore me. This one was especially bad:

Movie: Look, she’s driving the wrong way!

Me: Yeah, I see that.

Movie: No, see when you drive the wrong way, other cars come towards you! Look!

Me: Uh huh. Can they please get to the destination so the plot can advance?

Movie: …but see, also the police pursuing her are getting into these crazy wrecks because they too are forced to drive the wrong way!

I don’t mean to be too harsh. There are some good things in this movie–the opening twenty minutes are filled with tension when the gang kidnaps Lucy, as well as some delightful banter in the first scene between her and her boyfriend Richard (Pilou Asbæk), who initially tricks her into delivering the drugs. Johansson and Asbæk are really good together.

The acting in general is fine; nobody is asked to do anything spectacular, but all the actors are competent. And the story, despite being based on a completely inaccurate idea that humans only use 10% of their brains, is well-told and clever.

It’s just way too padded out. At one point, about halfway through, Lucy has the main villain completely at her mercy and doesn’t kill him. This is after the guy has killed her boyfriend, kidnapped her, killed another prisoner in front of her, and sewn drugs into her stomach so she can act as an unwilling mule for him. And she’s already killed a bunch of his henchmen by this point, so she’s no pacifist. The only reason for her to spare him is because otherwise there would be no plot.

This story would’ve been much better as a one-off episode in a show like The Twilight Zone or something. It’s a nice concept, but not one that can sustain 90 minutes of screen time without any other elements thrown in.

I watched this movie because someone said it was like Ghost in the Shell. And there are some similarities: in both movies, Scarlett Johansson is turned against her will into a nearly-unstoppable super-human crimefighter. Also, the best scenes in both movies are the ones with Johansson and Asbæk together.

So yeah, it’s a fair comparison. But Ghost in the Shell has more interesting characters and a meatier plot with more twists and turns. Lucy is more like a first draft of a promising script that no one bothered to revise.