Lucy is lightning fast. As soon as Luc Besson's latest European-tinged philosophical reflection disguised as an action film begins we are in the throws of multiple ideas and unknown situations. There is never a moment as the film begins to unfold where one wonders past what Besson's intent was with the film for, despite Morgan Freeman preaching to a choir of eager college students, we easily become wrapped up in these universal questions and ponderings. Not three years ago the highly regarded Terrence Malick crafted a film Roger Ebert placed on his "Greatest Films of All Time" column that contributed to the
Sight & Sound poll. Malick's
Tree of Life is a film that attempts to cover the span of not just one human life, but the existence of life on our planet and in some weird, off-beaten way
Lucy attempts to explore the same thoughts and ideas with the added-bonus of putting our central human subject in a state of heightened reality. This all may sound quite strange given the trailers for this Scarlett Johansson-starrer made it look like a science-fiction action flick in which Scar Jo kicks ass after being betrayed and infused with a product that unlocks the other ninety percent of the human brain. Still, while all of this is somewhat accurate in the vein all of those things happen and you would certainly classify the film as science fiction, this is a movie more about the endless possibilities than it is who our heroine will fight next. Taking its cues from the myth that says humans only use ten percent of our brains, Besson explores what might occur if we were enabled to use the full capacity of our cognitive reach and he thinks some strange stuff might begin to happen. The thing about
Lucy though is that this is a film you can't take overly-serious or become caught up in the semantics of if this could really happen and if it did, what it might actually mean if the entire human race were enabled to do as Lucy. No, what one must be able to do with a movie as (somewhat) outlandish as this is to take it all in on its own terms and enjoy it or leave it alone altogether. For me, I love an interestingly strange premise, the science fiction genre in general and Johansson has been on somewhat of a streak as of late so I was more than willing to look past any breaks in reality and simply enjoy
Lucy for what she is: Besson's exploration of the nature of life through the eyes of the kinetic energy with which he directs.
