Lucy

One adjective could sum up this film… thought-provoking.

The opening sceneic view of the revolutionized world with the compassionate voice of Scarlett Johansson in the background captivates the audience and immediately creates a sense of guilt and criticality of the world we live in and how we live.  The main idea is that our world began with endless potential and yet we have resorted to limiting ourselves to only focus on what’s in front of us.  Only about 10% of the typical human brain is being occupied, while dolphins are beating us in the race of using our resources with 20% of their brain occupancy usage.

Professor Norman (Morgan Freeman) is approached by the corrupted Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) about her state of brain occupancy that is quickly advancing to 100%.  She is unwillingly infected with a drug that is extremely illegal and dangerous that causes her brain to develop and the cells to collide with one another.

It is difficult for any of us to comprehend exactly what is constantly happening within the character, Lucy, because we don’t use 20%, much less 100% of our brain, nor do we know of anyone that does or ever has. As Professor Norman repeatedly says, “it’s just a theory.”  So it is hard to predict what would occur if that is to happen.  It seems as though there was a lot of research performed to make this movie as accurate as possible.  Morgan Freeman played the “expert” on the topic of brain occupancy and seemed to know as much as he could without actually having factual knowledge of what would happen.

The movie jumped around quite a bit from the very beginning.  It would jump from what was happening with Lucy, to Freeman, to the bad guys, to the world around them, and then back to Lucy.  At first, this could be confusing to the audience, but I have theorized that this “jumping around” is supposed to represent what goes on in Lucy’s brain.  She is constantly learning new things, probably millions of new things every second.  Her brain jumps from one topic to another while learning to control people, herself, and other objects.  The movie, therefore, represents the cells reacting within the character of Lucy.  Overlooked but pretty cool, right?

Just the story line is extremely captivating, but the progression of Lucy as a character falling deeper and deeper into the full brain capacity is enthralling.  Lucy’s personality diminishes  every time she acquires another percentage of brain capacity because there is no longer room for that personality, only information and control.  Personally, my eyes were glued to the screen the whole time, with the exception of when stomachs were being sliced open.  The blood, violence, and heartlessness in this movie is unnerving, so I don’t advise taking children to the movie because it is pretty disturbing to watch bags of drugs being ripped out of stomachs.  The sexual content is basically zero, as is the language, surprisingly.

And all I have to say about the editing, AMAZING.  This movie is incredibly formatted through top-knotch editing skills that realistically portrayed the drug exploring and taking over Lucy’s body system, her brain activity, and several other intense technological scenes.  There is one scene where Lucy is sitting in Times Square, in which she can control time.  She just sits as she watches Times Square devolve from modern day to 1800s to 1500s to before civilization.  It was incredible to watch something that is so unworldly and unreasonable to us, yet is exactly how the world progressed into what it is today, just backwards. We can’t imagine time moving like that.  Scenes similar to that one make me fall in love with movie-making all over again.

Overall, I would give this movie a 7/10 because of all the thought and preparation that had to go into the storyline.  I would recommend going to see it, only if you are prepared to be up for a few hours thinking about how the world around you works.  Unfortunately, I don’t think it is a movie that many people will be making second trips to go see, but it is very entertaining for a modern Sci-Fi.