"Lucy" is a big movie with a narrow mind; it speaks of all that used to work in a Luc Besson film and doesn't anymore because we're no longer in 1989. Besson ignores that, but he's kept up with current times in other ways. Witness how "Lucy" borrows liberally from recent movies such as "The Dark Knight Rises," "Transcendence" and "Limitless." Besson knows his cinema, but maybe that has taken away from his own store of originality.
Still, "Lucy" promises relentless entertainment and delivers it spot-on. Scarlett Johansson plays the titular character who gets mixed up in a drug deal in Korea, ingests a mind-altering drug and turns into a goddess. Suddenly she's endowed with physical superpowers and is able to use 100 percent of her brain (supposedly the average human being uses only 10 percent or so).
Mindless, gratuitous carnage and gun action follow. A lot of black lingerie is flung about but Lucy is too brilliant to stoop to anything so ordinary as sex or love. Besides, the guys around her are either too old (Morgan Freeman) or they're — gasp! — Asian (Choi Min-sik) and should be killed off in hordes. Besson should read the news sometime, to update his knowledge on what's politically correct these days.
| Rating | |
|---|---|
| Director | Luc Besson |
| Language | English |
| Opens | now showing |
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