"Life was given to us a billion years ago. What have we done with it?"

Year: 2014

Director & Writer: Luc Besson

A woman is supposed to deliver a mysterious suitcase to a certain Mr. Jang, but everything goes wrong. She accidentally gets a large amount of new drug into her system, and this has unexpected consequences - she can now use much more of her brain capacity compared to an average human being.

I saw the trailer for this movie when it came out. A lot of people were excited about it, but then people started to notice some really problematic things (like Lucy shooting a man just because he didn't speak english - in his home country. More about racism in this movie later). Even if most of these "problematic" things were noticed from just the trailer - well all know how trailers are never truthful - I sort of thought I would never watch it. But here I am, I just finished this movie.

To be honest I was expecting some kind of superhero movie. Actually that's what the trailer made me - and probably many other people - think. Maybe not typical superhero, saving the world and all that, but still something. Well, as it turns out, I was wrong. Apparently "superpowers" don't always equal superheroes in cinema. That's actually very good.

I read that many scenes mirrored 2001 A Space Odyssey and Inception. Well, I haven't seen either of those yet. Anyway, the cinematography was great. I loved those little quick almost metaphorical shots in the beginning. They gave this movie some depth right in the beginning, and I wasn't expecting that. In every way the effects, colours and everything was very nice. Most of the scenes were clear and easy to follow, which is good in action. Like during some of the Marvel movies it's really hard to keep track on what's happening, where and between who. (I'm looking at you Avengers)

Also Lucy is an interesting character... slightly. We don't know much about her before all this shit starts to go down, so there's a mystery. We know she's American and what she looks like and she's about to take an exam apparently, and she has a mom and a dad, But the slight mystery around her is the only thing that's interesting, because after she starts using much more of her brain, she becomes emotionless, and this really typical, expressionless godlike character. I mean a character who is somehow superior to others, and just knows everything, knows how to do everything, and then just sits there and explains things we don't know about our word so blankly it's almost painful. Could've they made her somehow human? I know, she didn't feel pain or fear or anything, but you know what she could've felt? Awe. It would've been much more effective, if Lucy would've been in awe of all the knowledge she had instead of just accepting everything. (And before someone who's seen the movie says how she was in awe, yes, I know, but only for a little while. Mostly she was just emotionless machine.) I just wanted more feelings from Lucy. I don't know if the fault is in the character or actress.

The story focuses on mostly the urban legend of how people only use small percentage of their brain. I kind of like and don't like that trope. You know who had the best use for that trope? Douglas Adams. In this one book a woman was unconscious and she saw ten boxes, metaphorical for how people would use only 10 % of their brain. So one box was in use, what about the others? Full of penguins.

So, the racism in this movie. First of all I have to say, since I am white I'm not an expert on this. I'm just hanging on to what I've read some Asians write about this. Like I mentioned, there was this scene were Lucy shot a man in Taiwan (correct me if I'm wrong) because she asked if he spoke English and he said no. That was sort of... really disturbing. And also some really stereotypical tropes were used a lot, and in the beginning this movie was a lot like "White woman killing scary Asian men". All of this doesn't make any sense, because they could've used so many different approaches, but they used the racist one. You can read more here, if you want to, that's the post I read now and after the trailer was released.

So this wasn't a superhero movie like I was expecting. I have to say: good. I'm glad it was sort of deeper science fiction than just simple Marvel or DC style. I mean this isn't on the same level with Moon or any other astonishing science fiction movie, but still better than just mindless action and ray guns and all that.

So Lucy is a racist movie, that's a fact and there's no going around it. It was slightly heavier than I was expecting. But if you don't think about the racist parts for a while - and I know a lot of people won't - this movie is pretty good. Don't get me wrong, I've seen better, but this was better than I expected. I don't think I'm going to see it again for a while, I think it loses its magic after the first time, and you probably can't watch this every weekend. But still, it's worth seeing.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

8 / 10