Lucy - Danny's Review

The average person uses 10% of their brain capacity. Imagine what she could do with 100%.

You don't have to imagine - during the film Scarlet Johannsen gets gradually more and more powerful until she reaches 100% and transcends into a spangly USB stick. Spoiler alert. First, I'm going to debunk this brain capacity myth. We already use 100% of the brain. We know this, as brain damage to any part of the brain affects its overall function. We don't use all of the brain at the same time, but that's because the different parts do different things. Claiming we could use it all at once is like claiming a football team would do much better if all 22 legs kicked the ball at the same time.

Despite this, the film is enjoyable. It's fun watching Lucy get more powerful. The progression is described in advance by bumbling professor Morgan Freeman, who explains it in a science lecture, while stressing this of course is only theoretical. He correctly hypothesises that you get: heightened senses, more control of your own body, control of other people's bodies, control of matter, then ... unknown (spangly USB). As she becomes more ultimate Lucy feels herself losing control of her humanity so gets in contact with Morgan, who just like he does in Transcedence (review here) presents the human face of science and reflects on the morality of it all. He gets the crumby lines about how much progress have we really made, and annoyingly contrasts maths and physics with emotions.

Lucy first gets her powers when she is unwittingly used as a drug mule, and the experimental new super-drug leaks into her. This first half hour of set-up is really good, and Luc Besson handles the slick Chinese supercrims nicely. I particularly like that none of the Chinese gangsters speak English, including evil honcho Mr. Jang (Min-sik Choi from Oldboy). There's no subtitling, except for one very weak moment when Lucy shoots a cab driver and they add a subtitle like "aarg my leg" just to make it clear that she's not overly mean and didn't actually kill him.

Once she starts growing in power you want to see what she can do, and she has two missions: to get revenge on the drug traffickers and to collect more of the drug for herself, to fuel her rapid metamorphosis. She also picks up a French cop sidekick, who at one point makes the excellent point that Lucy doesn't really need him. She responds that she needs him "to remind her", remind her about being human I suppose. She has quite a bit of existential angst but that doesn't get in the way of a good and fast moving plot, which is clearly signposted when big numbers flash up on the screen to show what percentage of full brain capacity she is at.

Overall it's an OK watch but not one to take too seriously. Best moments when she claims she can feel gravity, and starts to see phone calls as lots of lines going up into space.