Humans use only 10 percent of their cranial capacity, and if they were to ever access a larger percent of that potential, crazy things would happen.
So says the movie “science” behind the Scarlett Johansson-headlined sci-fi thriller “Lucy,” and in line with that idea, audiences may have to forsake part of that supposed mental 10 percent to properly enjoy the film.
The overwhelmingly simplistic plot reads like bad fanfiction: Lucy is an airhead American schoolgirl stuck with delivering drugs to a seedy hotel in Taiwan. Foreign thugs stick one of the mysterious pouches inside her stomach, leading her to gain 20 percent of her hidden brainpower.
Now she’s gifted in believable ways, such as accessing all points of her memory and gaining super-reflexes, but most of her abilities exploit the film’s atrociously questionable suspension of reality — like manipulating electromagnetic waves, walking on ceilings and reading people’s minds.
If the premise wasn’t shaky enough, “Lucy” also forgets to flesh out the logistics of its absurd storyline. Gaping plot holes include the ways the film’s baddie of choice (Choi Min-Sik) is connected to the drug, the reasons he sends Lucy and others away with it in their bodies, and what greater purpose that token scientific expert Dr. Samuel Norman (Morgan Freeman) serves.
The main Mary Sue herself is also a static character; after Lucy’s transformation into all-knowing, badass humanoid, her only goal is to reach 100 percent through finding more of the drug. Her motivations remain unclear throughout the film as she jumps from one caricature to another, failing to show any personality throughout the whole process.
On top of the unclear takeaway — should we as “10 percent” humans be more curious about life? stop underestimating pretty blondes? — the interspersion of scenes ripped from the Discovery Channel is equally nonsensical.
If shots of predators on the prowl and of Lucy traversing time and space on a globe-wide adventure are supposed to make the story symbolic of the laws of nature, the film could have tried harder to work with that idea. Perhaps “Lucy” would have then been an acceptable experimental film. That would be a step up from the two-dimensional chaotic feat it is instead.
_MOVE gives “Lucy” 1.5 out of 5 stars_