'Lucy' review by Captain Raptor

'Lucy' review by Jake Boyle

Lucy received a fairly hostile reception upon its initial release, mostly based upon its portrayal of Asians and the now widely known to be bullshit 'you only use 10% of your brain' factoid. While the former of these criticisms makes perfect sense, in a world of superhero films that bear as much resemblance to scientific reality as climate change deniers, quite why this particular film's erroneous logic was a sticking point isn't clear to me, but we'll bypass that.

It's an easily forgiveable error because it's indicative of the genuine effort that's been made to make Lucy more intuitive and dramatic than its competitors. This particular example, aiming to achieve those qualities by grounding the film in a sense of authenticity, failed pretty miserably, but decisions made by Luc Besson such as splicing in footage of animals as (very blatant) symbolism do give the overall experience an edge of smarter drama and even thoughtfulness. I particularly enjoyed the film's steady descent into madness; starting off with some very tense scenes where 90% of the dialogue is unsubtitled Mandarin that makes the audience feel Lucy's bewilderment and trepidation, the film then journeys through superpowered beat 'em up and into existential thrillseeking before an ending that's so gloriously insane it defies description. It's all nonsense, obviously, but a refreshingly ambitious brand of nonsense. 

Scarlett Johansson's game performance anchors the film, and she comfortably does whatever's needed of her. Julian Rhind-Tutt's single scene is a particular treat, delightfully chewing the scenery as a villainous character far more entertaining than the primary antagonist. These characters are fun because they possess the silliness and energy that drives the film, something that the other characters sorely lack: Morgan Freeman appears in yet another film where nobody asks him to act and instead just spouts rhetoric about Besson's chosen themes, and Amr Waked's lifeless cop only exists so that Lucy has a reason to explain what's going on to the audience via proxy. Once the initial plot's served its purpose and the action sequences begin, the film quickly encounters the Superman problem wherein there's never any real sense of threat or danger because Lucy's newfound abilities are so overpowering. The obvious inferiority of her enemies is played nicely a few times for comic effect, but it quickly loses any impact to see her so easily overwhelm generic henchmen.

Lucy isn't by any measure a spectacular or eye-opening affair, but it's a highly fun, diverting piece of cinema. It's leaner and wiser than the average modern action movie, wisely sticking to a compact running time and injecting little doses of exploratory sci-fi or out-of-the-box thinking that don't make the film much smarter or adventurous but do give it just a little bit of extra flavour. It's definitely a flawed piece of cinema, but not to the extent that viewing it wasn't enjoyable, and the film is strong enough to stand up under the weight of its own absurdity.