FILM REVIEW: Lucy
Besson tries and
fails (again)
Luc
Besson’s films haven’t really received many good reviews over the past few
years and unfortunately his latest release, Lucy,
does nothing to change that fact. Starring both Scarlett Johansson and Morgan
Freeman, this film had the potential to be pretty darn great, but it fell short
at just about every hurdle. The film follows the story of Lucy, a student who
is forced into becoming a drug mule with a packet of a new drug, CPH4, sewn
into her. Her passage takes a turn for the worse when she is violently
attacked, causing the drugs packet inside of her to burst, releasing very large
amounts of the drug, which increases the user’s brain function capacity, into
her bloodstream. Lucy immediately begins
to develop powerful mental talents such as telekinesis, the ability to absorb
information instantaneously and mental time travel amongst other things.
Lucy
seems to have passed under the radar in terms of popular summer film releases,
which surprised me upon hearing about it, but doesn’t surprise me at all now
that I’ve seen it. Whilst the plot is intriguing and there are some superb
special effects, the two don’t quite mesh together and it all starts to crumble
the minute the film gets going. At only 89 minutes long, there isn’t really any
time for anything to be properly developed, be it the characters or the plot
and quite frankly the last third of the film literally makes no sense at all.
Typical of Besson’s films, there are lots of cool special effects and the whole
film is very ‘visual’, but the attempt to combine snazzy action sequences and
exploding visuals with a complicated story line about the capacity of the human
brain results in a huge muddle (a beautiful muddle, but a muddle nevertheless).
I’d
say that a lot of people don’t often fully comprehend the complicated scientific
theories behind these sorts of films; however, enough information to support a
basic understanding of what is going on would be ideal. Unfortunately, Besson does
not seem to think the same, leaving watchers completely baffled as to what
exactly is going on for all 89 minutes of this film.
One
of the main problems with this film is that it was just too ambitious. It has
been said that in Besson’s ‘Statement of Intent’ he compared the film to
Nolan’s Inception. Really, Besson? This film seems lost and
misguided, unsure of where it’s going and what it’s trying to be. At several
points throughout the film the audience was laughing but I certainly wouldn’t
classify this film as a comedy. Whilst at the beginning this seemed like a
serious thriller, it swiftly turned to meaningless action sequences reminiscent
of Besson’s Hitman. The film’s one
saving grace would be that Scarlett Johansson kicks some serious ass and
there’s a real ‘girl-power’ vibe throughout. The acting is great but without a
coherent plot to support it, it all goes to waste.
Indeed,
Lucy has received very mixed reviews
from critics since its release just under a week ago but a lot of those reviews
tend to be along the lines of ‘it’s better than expected’ which doesn’t equal ‘worth
watching’. All in all, Lucy is a film that had the potential to be something
great but poor execution has led it astray and consequently the overall feeling
is just one of confusion and disappointment.
