Review – Lucy (2014)

Can I first off just say that I went into this movie expecting and hoping it would be awesome, however the text I sent my sister as soon as it finished said “Biggest let down of 2014,” and here’s why.

Starring Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman (yes yes good so far) this movie has a synopsis that sounds like it’s going to provide two hours of glorious sci-fi meets superhero action.

We meet Lucy in Tapei, she’s just your run of the mill twenty something party girl who gets conned into delivering a suitcase to a hotel by her friend. Surprise surprise this sketchy looking steel suitcase is full of drugs and the guy she delivers it to is a big fat sketchy drug lord. So, okay we are going well so far, still has potential to be fantastic. To avoid spoilers I will not describe HOW the rest of the movie plays out in detail…

All I will say is, Lucy accidentally absorbs a massive amount of this drug (CHP4 – a drug released in small doses by pregnant women to accelerate and aid the growth of a foetus) which enables her to use more than 10% of her brain power at a time and become basically a super human. (By the way I did some research and that whole “we only use 10% of our brain thing is actually a “laughable myth” according to neuro-scientists)

It starts off with some epic super-power ass kicking, which is what we all want to see going into a movie like this. More and more powers get added to the mix as more and more of her brain gets unlocked, including mind control and X-Ray vision. BUT it seems that the more of her brain power she unlocks  – the shitter this movie gets.

This movie has the WORST most unoriginal, unthreatening and useless bad guys I have ever seen. It also seems like the writers just had the idea for the brain power aspect, scribbled that down and when asked to explain what else happens for two hours they just panicked and ad libbed the rest of the plot in their pitch meeting while hoping nobody noticed they shit their pants.

Also I don’t know if it’s the director or Scar-Jo’s fault but she has the same facial expression the whole time and it is EXACTLY like Abed from Community’s expression (see picture below).

For a movie that had SO MUCH potential to provide a really interesting and intellectual super hero thrill ride it fell well short of the mark. It reminds me of those cat videos, where a kitten is all ready, butt wiggling to jump from the couch to the table, it pumps itself up so much,but when it comes time to jump it falls face first into the cold, bitter and disappointing ground. You feel sorry for it at first but then realise that it was just a very poorly thought out plan. That is this movie.

All in all, if you want to see an ass kicking female lead character with super human abilities, go watch Hanna instead, it’s much better. Much, much better.

1.5 Stars.