Lucy: philosophical super-heroine adventure

This is a super-hero movie. And the super-heroine is way cooler than Batman, more powerful than Superman, and even all the X-Men and Avengers combine could not defeat her. And in one of the scene, she even imitate Venom, but not to destroy nor kill but to build a computer. What? She is that powerful? Yup.


Lucy can be as simple or as complex one made it to be. The basic story is so simple, she began as a drug mule. Following a mishap whereby the luggage in a abdomen was leaked, she began to develop super power following the overdose. Wow. This is the interesting way to gain super power. Not being vengeful following death of family, nor being born that way, nor being bitten by a radioactive insect, not wearing high tech armour, not even being a product of a science experiment. Just a simple overdose of experimental illicit substance. (bad message to people out there, in real life, people die from overdose. they DO NOT become powerful being) Following that, she gain access to more extensive part of the brain, of course, eventually 100%. In that process, she gain power of telekinesis, manipulate electrical items, fast reflex, and evetually power over time and space. Basically she became God-like. Of course throw in the Korean mafia who is hot on her heels to retrieve the original package which she is suppose to deliver. And basically that summarize the whole movie.


Scarlett Johansson plays the title character well enough. The whole movie is about her, and most of the screen time is with her in it. She looks perplexed and ambivalent most of her time up until the climax of the show. She would not earn a Oscar from this, but her performance is well enough. I still like her as Black Widow though. The rest are just accessories. Morgan Freeman plays a professor trying to guide Lucy while Choi Min-Sik plays the main bad guy. Too few chance for them to shine.

As a super hero movie, Lucy fails terribly. The main baddie is not powerful being trying to take over the world, but just some gangster, who look powerless in most scene. Even with all her power, and being not hesitant to kill in the movie, she has to let the villain live when she could have just kill him. That would save us lots of time. The action sequence is average, though the car chase sequence is one of the better ones. The main climax fight is a disappointment where by it is just gangster fight with lots and lots of guns. But, Lucy is not our usual super hero movie. This is a thinking movie. Even philosophical. So much so that I bet not many people understand the whole show. Before going into the cinema, a friend actually told me about the show. "it is not a bad movie...." and he began to narrate the whole movie. And after watching Lucy myself, I found the narration was all wrong. There are so many deep question roaming about. The existential theories. The concept of time in existence. The purpose of being. I would not even try to explain about it here, but do prepare to think while watching this show.



Overall, it was, as my friend put it, an average movie. Despite the deep meaning to the show, it did not make the impact I hope it did. I will still probably forget the movie a month later, but for a weekend without many other choice, this probably still above the rest.


ratings: 2 half poink!
comments: prepare to use more than 15% of our brain in this short 1 half hour.