Lucy (2014)

Dedicated to Anastasia

“Life was given to us a billion years ago. Now you know what you can do with it.”

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Hey kids!

Want to be smart, efficient and learned? Try Luc Besson’s patented ‘Whole Brain Program’ that lets you unlock the power of your entire brain quickly and easily.

It is simple! ….How you ask?

Drugs! Lots of them!

Just shove fistfuls of what appears to be Walter White’s large-format blue meth crystals into your face and …Blammo! You are using your *whole brain* to do fun stuff.

What kind of fun stuff, you say? Fun stuff like shooting a cab driver in the leg for not being able to speak English!

Shooting a dude on an operating table. It’s cool because he was going to die anyway!

Don’t forget to stab people. Lots of people. Stabbing is awesome too. Speak in a creepy monotone! Feel how people’s kidneys are functioning from the outside! And sure you might be killing 100s of innocent pedestrians and motorists in Paris by starting a wholly unnecessary high-speed car chase but remember this is a Luc Besson joint!

And Jesus, what a movie.  I was lured, tricked even …into going because I am the kind of woman who really enjoys watching other fierce women wreak punchy, kicky havoc on bad dudes. With visions of the Black Widow thigh flipping her foes dancing in my head, I forced my unwilling boyfriend to the theatre to see Lucy, played by Scarlett Johansson (Ghost World). I was there to see Johansson kick some drug-peddling thug ass.

I was wrong. So wrong.

Don’t be fooled as I was, my vengeful sisters.

This is not that movie. Like at all. I’m not even going to say ‘Spoiler Alert’ at this point. You need to be warned. This movie is, how shall I say …dumb? Yes, dumb.

Morgan Freeman is in this. Why is Morgan Freeman (Wanted) in this? Even Freeman’s wonderful, sonorous and elegant voice isn’t cool AT ALL when it is spouting the most incredible gibberish pseudo-science. Even the extras they hired to nod pompously in the lecture hall didn’t make this tripe palatable.

Hacker Renders did a hilarious bit on the way home from the theatre where an impersonated Morgan Freeman asked director/writer Luc Besson if there was going to be any stock footage of animals humping in the film. Because that might be the one thing that would really wreck the movie.

Luc Besson assures Mr. Freeman, “Non, non monsieur.”

Not only was there ample stock footage of animals humping in this film but birthing large, quivering sacks of amniotic fluid too. From beyond the grave Ed Wood would have been proud of the indiscriminate use of just nonsensical stock footage crammed into this flick.

At one point, I thought to myself, “Gee, I hope I get to see a horribly-rendered CGI dinosaur.” And my wish came true.

No, really.

Lucy tells us “now you know what to do” with your life at the end of the film. It is meant to be arty and ambiguous.

I’ll unvague it up for you.

DON’T SPEND A SECOND OF YOUR LIFE WATCHING LUCY.

Don’t.

Just.

Don’t.

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Rated 14 A

89 minutes