The movie is kind of fun. Especially if you like to see an attractive white girl gun down a herd of Chinese gangsters. There are a lot of them and they all go down.
Early in the movie, Lucy is just a hard-partying American college girl going to school in Taipei. Who doesn't speak Chinese. It's just one of the many things in this movie that don't make a whole lot of sense. Why did this movie start in Taipei? Who knows, except to give many exterior shots of Taipei 101.
Morgan Freeman, attempting to be the intellectual ground of this movie, spends the first part of the movie giving a lecture on Evolution 101, to a bunch of scientists (they all look too old to be students), in Paris. The climax of this lecture is the blatantly untrue statement that humans use only 10% of their brainpower. All kinds of wonderful things would happen if we could only get up to 20% of 40%. A genius from the audience asks, "Professor, what if it were 100%?". Professor Morgan looks thoughtful and says, wistfully, "We don't know".
So as you know, the Chinese gangsters stuff a plastic bag of some pretty blue crystals, into Lucy's abdomen and give her a passport and a plane ticket to Paris. There are 4-5 guys who get the same treatment and get sent to other places. Since Lucy is the only woman in the group she gets some special treatment and a couple kicks to the stomach for not appreciating it. With much GC pyrotechnics, the blue crystals leak from the bag and into her bloodstream.
From this point on, Scarlett Johansson manages to keep the same expression on her face as in the poster above. No matter what is going on. And a lot goes on. Lucy crawls around on the ceiling, she shoots a bunch of guys, she digs a bullet out of her shoulder with her fingers, she forces a surgeon at gunpoint to remove the bag, she shoots some more people, practically disintegrates on an airplane, and steals a police car (and the policeman) in Paris and drives through a lot of picturesque locales at top speed leaving a trial of destruction behind.
Why does the movie end in Paris? Just a guess, the director, Luc Besson, was born there. And we get some fine shots of the Eiffel Tower.
Anyway, she eventually meets up with Professor Morgan, gives up her secret and, in a scene that reminded me of the end of "2001: A Space Odyssey" reaches a higher plane of existence. We know this because she sends a text: "I am everywhere".
The only other Luc Besson movie I've ever seen is "The Fifth Element" which is a movie I absolutely love. "Lucy" is not nearly as much fun but it's a wild ride. Don't pay too much attention to the details, just hold on.
1 comment:
Somehow or another when I first read this post I missed the "not" part of "it's not a remake" and kept reading your synopsis. And kept thinking... I don't remember Lucy having some 'splainin to do about murder and drugs.
Fifth Element is one of my favorite movies, which you kind of have to just enjoy the ride to like too.
As for the Taipei thing, not having seen the movie I know that Taipei has a lot of English speakers and perhaps she goes to an English-speaking university. Though Scarlett Johansson is hardly a college-age girl anymore...
I'll have to see this movie eventually, I suppose.
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