Movie Breakdown: Lucy

People are doing traditional-style reviews all over the web, so we decided to try something different.  In each “breakdown” we’ll take a look at what a film’s marketing led us to believe, how the movie actually played, and then what we learned from it all.  Read on!

The Impression:

Luc Besson gives Scarlett Johansson the ability to use 100% of her brain.  Morgan Freeman watches what happens.

The Reality:

Unfortunately, Lucy and I didn’t see eye to eye.  I figured the combo of director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, The Transporter, District B13) and Scarlett Johansson (the Black Widow-portraying badass) would provide me a wonderfully explosive time, but Lucy is actually short on the action and heavy on the philosophizing.  No thanks.  Maybe it’s because I only use the minimum amount of my brain capacity, but I just didn’t have any interest in watching Johansson slightly tilt her head to side, stare off into space and then ramble on about what it means to exist.  I just wanted to watch her walk into a room and kick ass.  Then after that I wanted to watch her walk into a bigger room and kick more ass.  Sure, there’s some of this in Lucy, but Besson doesn’t let it build into anything.  Every time there’s a cool moment he immediately kills any momentum it generated with a closeup of Johansson thinking or making some elaborate heady statement.  Again, no thanks.

I won’t say I hated Lucy, but it certainly was disappointing.  Instead of showing me something worth remembering, the film focuses on delivering the sort of conversations that drunk philosophy majors have at parties.

The Lesson:

Never go full brain.