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Initial release: July 25, 2014
Director: Luc Besson
Running time: 90 minutes
I read about a film starring Scarlett Johansson where her character seeks revenge after being wronged in some way and I decided I would see it when it came out but I wasn’t anticipating it strongly until I saw the trailer for it. The film is Lucy, a science fiction film directed by Luc Besson. When I found out it had a science fiction theme I became excited and I saw it the day it came out here in the UK. It is similar to Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper, which is a very popular film and one of my favourites and it also reminded me of Transcendence starring Johnny Depp which was not great but was interesting with a similar theme.
Scarlett Johansson stars as Lucy, a young woman living in Taiwan who right at the beginning of the film gets talked into doing something shady by her boyfriend and as a consequence she ends up being abducted by thugs working for Mr Jang who is played by Choi Min-sik, famous for starring in the Korean film, Oldboy.
While captive, Lucy gets surgically made into a drug mule, having a bag containing a drug called CPH4 placed into her abdomen and with it then sewn up so she can be used to smuggle a large quantity of the drug abroad. While kept in a type of holding cell and chained up, a thug kicks her repeatedly in the abdomen and this causes the bag containing the drug to split open – leaking out a large quantity of the drug into her blood stream.
As a result of the drug’s effect on her, she develops superhuman mental and physical abilities. It’s from this point that the film takes on an action mixed with philosophical musings style and we get to see Scarlett’s Lucy take on those responsible, and anyone else that gets in her way.
A lot of people complain about the film’s use of the 10% brain myth, which states that we only use 10% of our brains. It’s said in the film that CPH4 enables Lucy to use more than 10% of her brain and that accounts for her special abilities. Morgan Freeman plays a professor, Samuel Norman, who is shown early on in the film explaining the 10% of the brain theory and speculating on incredible abilities that may be possible if the brain were to be used more fully and this helps to steer viewers understanding of the unfolding developments with Lucy and her situation.
Overall I found the film a lot of fun as did a gentlemen sitting in front of me who cheered in parts and clapped at the end. There were a couple of things I didn’t like – the use of stock footage of animals in the wild, and a bit of an abrupt ending that left me wanting to know more but I’m glad I saw it and I would recommend it to people who like other films with a similar theme, like Limitless and Transcendence.
Reviewed by Alistair
Counter Culture 
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