Contemplating Lucy

This weekend at the box office, Scarlett Johansson’s star power proved to be bigger than The Rock and her movie, Lucy, took the box office crown. This development, piled onto the revelation that statistics showed that women came out to see this sci-fi actioner, seemed to shock a great many in the mainstream media. Could this mean that there is a market for more films headlining women? While I would try not to take offense on anyone’s behalf from the sheer stupidity of the question, I fear that I must confess to not just disliking this film, but outright finding it offensive.

 If the movie were simply a stupid summer flick, that would be disappointing but unremarkable. The film was aiming for something more ambitious, which is usually something I admire even when it fails spectacularly. The problem is that however grand its ambitions were, there was an even greater amount of laziness put in, mainly from filmmaker Luc Besson. Bear in mind that Besson has never shown quite so much ambition as he does here, though arguably close with his classic film The Fifth Element. Yet the results of the film show that he failed his talented actress on nearly every level. Here are a few places:

(SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON)

1      1) Let’s start with the most obvious: Lucy’s story and plot are absolutely dumb. There is so much to say about the stupidity of this story, I’ll try to stay on the big items. First, the whole Korean mob plot is half-hearted and provides for a false sense of either urgency or action. They don’t explain why the mob would be so wreckless in getting back the drugs that they would risk a war with Paris police, considering that they implied that the bags given to the mules was part of a larger operation. They could just make more, which would be a whole lot safer than exposing themselves to international law enforcement. And how does that effect the end result of the film besides padding out the running time? The game clock isn’t when the mob catches her, but when her body will die due to overexposure to the drug. The mob plot is pointless since we know they can do nothing to harm her. And what exactly did Morgan Freeman do in the entire film besides give crackpot lectures? Why was is so important to get to him in Paris in the first place when she could’ve done what she did at her local school and had him come to her instead? 

2      2) Lucy’s character is poorly created. This is by no means Johansson’s fault. She clearly was trying to create a complex character and simply had nothing to work with. Here’s what we know of Lucy prior to the movie: She’s a young American college girl in Korea who lives in a pad with her equally young and naïve roommate who both enjoy partying a little too much. That’s it.  When the drug affects her, the first to go is her humanity, diminishing her personality and turns her into a machine. We don’t even see a fight between her human side and the robot. If this is intentional, then why not allow other characters to react to the strangeness of her behavior in ways that show the widening divide between her and the rest of humanity?  Instead, we’re treated to title cards showing her perceived cerebral capacity. 

          3) Lucy’s powers are not consistent nor do they make much sense. So let’s get this straight, it’s a cool idea to have a character that is in tuned with every cell and atom on the planet, to see data streams (though that was better done in the short lived show Alphas), to be able to finagle frequencies and control others through molecule manipulation. But the movie shows her being able to control and see from halfway around the world. She could tell what was on the French policeman’s desk, but not exactly where all three mules were at that very moment? I can buy a superhero being able to turn a TV into a two-way communication device, but the film wants to treat Lucy’s abilities seriously yet doesn’t communicate clearly how she’s doing the things she does. 

4       4) Let’s talk about Lucy’s science. I’m reminded of the scene in Transformers 2 when Sam proclaimed that Einstein was wrong about FTL travel and how offended I was that a popcorn movie would shrug off scientific thinking just to set up a magical alternative. The science behind Lucy’s mental abilities reeks of a quick Wikipedia write-off to excuse poor setup and payoff. Even with higher mental functions, at what range do her abilities work? If everything is interconnected, how would you be able to manipulate indefinitely? Would there be any consequence to the usage of such energy? Even Morgan Freeman is going off hypotheses or the crackpot variation, yet other scientists never challenge his observations or call him out. But then I guess looking and sounding like Morgan Freeman could be rather intimidating. And this guy has a show that’s all about scientific questioning…

5       

      5) If you take out the Morgan Freeman lecture scenes and the needless Korean mob scenes, the film would be about 20 minutes long. This is why there are so many needless scenes in the film. This was a short film at best and still a bad one at that. Besson needed to put enough action to make it onto the trailer, but none of it is important to the story nor have any stakes. The visual metaphors are redundant because Johansson is doing her job perfectly, so we didn’t need to know how she was feeling with images of lions stalking prey. But again, for it to classify as a feature film, it needed stuffing .

Scarlett Johansson is a truly gifted actor that deserves to be put in films that allow her to shine. Lucy could have been that film if it had created a character for her that she could do something with and then give her situations where she could do something fantastic. She can do action as we’ve seen in her Black Widow role. She can do intimate drama as shown in Lost in Translation and Girl with the Pearl Earring. She can even do comedy as see in Don Jon and Ghost World. And even more exhilarating is that she’s willing to step out of her comfort zones, experiment and even fail. But Lucy is not her fault. No doubt the success of this movie will encourage her to try again and I certainly can’t wait. But next time I hope the material is worthy of her performance.