Lucy: Luc Besson tries being intellectual and fails miserably.
A while ago, there came out a movie called Lucy - starring Scarlett Johanssen directed by the French director Luc Besson, known for his action-super movies like Transporter and a certain series in the 90's called La Femme Nikita.
With the trailer released, we get glimpses of Her Hotness, Scarlett kicking some ass. Albeit a little spaced off like she's completely zoned-out of worldly things. We get excited, lick our lips in anticipation and then dutifully get down to watching the movie.
But soon - the touted pseudo science-fictional thriller - exploring themes of half-understood evolutionary science, pulp-super heroine - comes across as a treatise in Luc Besson's amateurish ambitions at being intellectually towering - thus becoming a little boring. Falling half-way between nowhere and a space-void. But hey, the movie is still fun if you were to ignore the mumbo-jumbo of the human evolutionary arcs and primal apes and planetary movements. [ which trust me, is kind of hard coz the last few moments of the movie where teh threads are being tied up - we are left painfully blinking at the breakneck pace of things going insane and unraveling oh-so-bloody-fast.]
So Lucy - is a student in Taiwan who gets "tricked" by her boyfriend into delivering a mystery briefcase to "Mr.Jang"- who turns out to be an evil drug lord. True to frame, Choi-Min Sik turns out to be the epitome of mindless evil. His first frame being him cleaning up blood from his hands meting out punishment to some hapless fellow.
Turns out the briefcase contains a gooey blue crystalline drug, called CPH4 - apparently the synthetic version of what mothers secrete for their fetuses. Aha! and but of course, the helpless Lucy is soon a "mule" to transport these packets sealed into her intestinal linings. One thing leads to another - goons paw at Lucy who "is not the mood right now" and soon gets man-handled. read kick in the pit of the stomach - that leads to the drug packet bursting.
What follows is probably the highlight of the action sequences in the movie. Lucy transforms as the powerful drug consumes, subsumes and completely eats up her brain cells. Lending her - bang on! - amazing super powers. She can now tap into more than 10% of her brain's capabilities.
And that basically means she zombies out. No emotion, no feeling. Brain is in overdrive - as is ominously portrayed by regular intervals of Flashing Percentage numbers telling us how divine she is.
While all this is happening - there is the laconic soporific drawl of Research Scientist, Professor Norman - Morgan Freeman again wasted - who talk about evolution through lurid pictures of wild animals coupling and hurricanes rippling through coastal areas. He conjectures about a person in control of more than 10-15% of brain-space - could be manipulating time and space.
Lucy proves it all right - turning into the "witch" - who can read thoughts, travel through space, communicate through radio channels, tap into video phones and ...well..just about do anything.
Looks like Luc Besson wanted a better movie that explores the potentials of Limitless. While yes, Scarlett is an improvement on Bradley Cooper, I think Luc is better off giving us blizzards of uzi-machine guns and harrowing car chases. Just for a formality. he does give us these action set pieces but with Super woman Lucy being pretty much invincible and now literally a god - all are pointless.
We mourn the loss of pulp action. We are left with a lot of pseudo intellectual mumbling around
time being the basis of existence and are left to watch bewildered - our brains filling up with voids the size of the crashing asteroids on the screen - as Lucy now at close to 100% is travelling time and space uninhibited.
My synapses were fried. I think I was left with less than 10% of my brain capabilities after this experience. Lucy I know the intentions were noble - to serve us with your unimaginable Yoda-like mastery over nature, knowledge and all that - thus to roll the evolutionary arc forwards for our pitiable human race. But hey - Just leave us kids alone will you? Didn't you hear? We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control.
With the trailer released, we get glimpses of Her Hotness, Scarlett kicking some ass. Albeit a little spaced off like she's completely zoned-out of worldly things. We get excited, lick our lips in anticipation and then dutifully get down to watching the movie.
But soon - the touted pseudo science-fictional thriller - exploring themes of half-understood evolutionary science, pulp-super heroine - comes across as a treatise in Luc Besson's amateurish ambitions at being intellectually towering - thus becoming a little boring. Falling half-way between nowhere and a space-void. But hey, the movie is still fun if you were to ignore the mumbo-jumbo of the human evolutionary arcs and primal apes and planetary movements. [ which trust me, is kind of hard coz the last few moments of the movie where teh threads are being tied up - we are left painfully blinking at the breakneck pace of things going insane and unraveling oh-so-bloody-fast.]
So Lucy - is a student in Taiwan who gets "tricked" by her boyfriend into delivering a mystery briefcase to "Mr.Jang"- who turns out to be an evil drug lord. True to frame, Choi-Min Sik turns out to be the epitome of mindless evil. His first frame being him cleaning up blood from his hands meting out punishment to some hapless fellow.
Turns out the briefcase contains a gooey blue crystalline drug, called CPH4 - apparently the synthetic version of what mothers secrete for their fetuses. Aha! and but of course, the helpless Lucy is soon a "mule" to transport these packets sealed into her intestinal linings. One thing leads to another - goons paw at Lucy who "is not the mood right now" and soon gets man-handled. read kick in the pit of the stomach - that leads to the drug packet bursting.
What follows is probably the highlight of the action sequences in the movie. Lucy transforms as the powerful drug consumes, subsumes and completely eats up her brain cells. Lending her - bang on! - amazing super powers. She can now tap into more than 10% of her brain's capabilities.
And that basically means she zombies out. No emotion, no feeling. Brain is in overdrive - as is ominously portrayed by regular intervals of Flashing Percentage numbers telling us how divine she is.
While all this is happening - there is the laconic soporific drawl of Research Scientist, Professor Norman - Morgan Freeman again wasted - who talk about evolution through lurid pictures of wild animals coupling and hurricanes rippling through coastal areas. He conjectures about a person in control of more than 10-15% of brain-space - could be manipulating time and space.
Lucy proves it all right - turning into the "witch" - who can read thoughts, travel through space, communicate through radio channels, tap into video phones and ...well..just about do anything.
Looks like Luc Besson wanted a better movie that explores the potentials of Limitless. While yes, Scarlett is an improvement on Bradley Cooper, I think Luc is better off giving us blizzards of uzi-machine guns and harrowing car chases. Just for a formality. he does give us these action set pieces but with Super woman Lucy being pretty much invincible and now literally a god - all are pointless.
We mourn the loss of pulp action. We are left with a lot of pseudo intellectual mumbling around
time being the basis of existence and are left to watch bewildered - our brains filling up with voids the size of the crashing asteroids on the screen - as Lucy now at close to 100% is travelling time and space uninhibited.
My synapses were fried. I think I was left with less than 10% of my brain capabilities after this experience. Lucy I know the intentions were noble - to serve us with your unimaginable Yoda-like mastery over nature, knowledge and all that - thus to roll the evolutionary arc forwards for our pitiable human race. But hey - Just leave us kids alone will you? Didn't you hear? We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control.
Comments