Imagine a film. A film directly named after an Australopithecus afarensis skeleton. A sci-fi film. A superhero film. The closest thing we have to a Black Widow solo film...
The reviews were mixed. The plot was meant to be confusing, it was generally meant to be.... weird.
And it is. Spoiler alert, by the way.
Lucy.
Lucy is one of those stand-alone sci-fi films with an artsy twist. I went into it full of suspicion that this was going to be a massive disappointment.
It doesn't really waste any time at the beginning. No real set-up, no character introduction. A boyfriend and girlfriend are having a tiff in front of a hotel, the guy wants Lucy to take a case inside for him. Lucy, sensibly, says "Wait, no, that's really weird. I'm not going to do that, I've only been dating you a week weirdo."
And her boyfriend says, "well, it's handcuffed to you now. See ya."
Lucy walks inside the building, and we start cutting back and forth to animals. A mouse beside a mouse trap. A big cat hunting a gazelle. The imagery is a bit on the nose, I admit, but I like animals so that's OK.
Boyfriend is killed in front of Lucy, she is captured (and the gazelle is dragged to the ground by the cheetah. Some more people are shot as she's taken upstairs and forced to open the case. Inside are four packages full of blue...
They're crystals. Quite big crystals. And yet everyone throughout the film continuously refers to it as "powder". There's a difference folks. A guinea pig... sorry, a guy is brought it and forced to sniff a tiny amount. He goes crazy, then he's shot. I have no idea what the kill count is for this film.
Actually, something does bother me about this scene. As far as we see, they never re-bag the drug, but they just poked a massive hole in one of them. It's the little things that irritate me.
Lucy asks a few questions through an interpreter, manages to convince the big baddie (no idea what his name is) not to kill her. She is hit over the head and wakes up a period of time later with a bandaged abdomen. Big baddie and evil guy the second (no idea what his name is either) bring her and three others into a room and lecture them about how they absolutely mustn't try to run or anything or their family, up to extended cousins will be killed. Not entirely sure why they point that out exactly. I can't really imagine being in a state of mind where my parents and siblings being killed wasn't enough to make me obedient, but ooh, add some people who I know fairly well and like quite a lot but who I really only share a teeny amount of DNA with is going to sway me. Also, I'm sorry but killing parents/siblings and making it look like an accident is easy. But maybe killing an entire extended family as well makes it... kind of obvious. Might make people look into it, you know?
Anyway. A dramatic hood is put over Lucy's head. She murmurs her escape plan to herself... out loud...
When the hood is removed, she's in an undetermined place. I wasn't sure when watching it if she'd been on the plane to another place yet or not. Later it turns out she has. This raises questions for me, because I thought the point of a drug mule was to go through security, however she was clearly smuggled through. Or they just didn't bother to show us the airport bit?
Anyway. A guard tries to grope her, she says no and it soundly beaten up. The bag inside her abdomen splits and...
She throws a magic seizure, hitting the wall, the ceiling... How she isn't smashed into a million pieces, I have no idea.
Maybe this is a time to mention Morgan Freeman. We randomly swap to watching him give a lecture every now and then, telling a group of.... students? Is it a conference or something? I'm not really sure who he's talking to. Anyway, the topic is "humans only use 10% of their brains, imagine how amazing it would be if we used 20, 30, 100..."
Remember this is sci-fi. The "we only use 10% of our brain" thing is a myth. Anyway, this is the point where it becomes relevant to the plot, because mysterious blue "powder" has made Lucy into a superhuman who uses more than 10% of her brain. This makes her incredibly able to fight, smart her way out of situations, and shoot people. There's a lot of shooting people, as she works her way out of imprisonment and to a random hospital. On the way, killing many people, including a taxi driver whose crime was not speaking English. I think she's meant to be the hero of this story.
When she arrives at the hospital, she finds her way to theatre and barges in. Having spent a lot of time trying to get into theatres it's much harder than she makes it look. Even though she has a gun.Which she uses again, by the way, to shoot the guy having brain surgery, because she analyses his brain activity and decides he wasn't going to live anyway. Then she threatens to kill the surgeon if he doesn't cut the blue powder out of her... without anaesthetic. While calling her mum. I mean... sure. I know I would definitely calmly operate on someone who had just killed my last patient.
Now I start to get confused about where she is in the world. She flies somewhere, and arrives in Paris? I mean, I thought she had no money and no passport, but OK. On the plane, she starts.... dissolving? Her teeth fall out, her skin tears away and powdered human flies off in all directions whenever she moves. She goes into the plane bathroom and takes the rest of the blue powder to stabilise herself. Then walks out past the shocked passengers and crew to no comment.
Her next move is to go to the police. Fair enough. I wish more people did that. She creepy-magically knows the colour of the pen in the desk next to the person she's talking to. Not sure how, creepy-magic. The police agree to help her... for some reason, and set about tracking down the other drug mules. She uses the same creepy-magic to contact Morgan Freeman and arrange to meet him.
The drug mules are captured and all brought to the same place. For some reason. They were all going to different countries, so... This makes them really easy to catch for the original owners of the drugs, who show up, break into this super secure police custody place and start cutting the packs out of the mules. Lucy shows up with her police friend, there's a fight, she ends up with the magic blue powder, there's a car chase.
Now we're getting up to the climax. It's baddies with guns against Morgan Freeman, his group of scientists and police guy. Lucy absorbs the rest of the blue powder while police and baddies shoot at each other in a meaningless way. Lucy has a trippy... trip, through history and around the world, presumably representing her amazing computer-ishness. Then, just before a baddie shoots, her, she fully becomes a computer. The baddies are all killed, and the scientists and police guy gather around the computer as it dissolves into ash, leaving behind just a USB stick.
"Where did she go?" Police guy asks.
His phone buzzes
"I am everywhere" is on the screen.
Enigmatic.
That's how it ends, leaving us with the question...
What exactly is this film?
Is it deeply philosophical, pondering what the human mind might be capable of achieving?
Is it a gritty action film?
Is it sci-fi, or a superhero flick?
I honestly have no idea.
So what do I think? Well, the acting can be a bit weird. Lucy goes from party animal to terrified hostage to... basically an emotionless computer. I think that's meant to be part of the story, Lucy's battle to remain human. It kind of isn't though. There are a few references, a few suggestions, but nothing that really sells that plotline to me.
The plot. That's another thing. Most of the time, I have no idea where in the world the characters are. Hell, I don't even really know where the story begins. The US? I guess? Beyond that... I don't know where she was trafficking the drugs to, I don't know how this whole "drugs mule" thing is meant to work in this universe...
I like this film. There's problems, with the plot, with the characters, with the acting. People exist in this film for reasons I honestly don't understand. They often aren't named, they aren't developed... why does police guy decide to help Lucy? What motivates him to risk his life for her? We'll never know. So you're probably thinking this is a bad film. And... maybe? But it's fun, honestly. Despite it's problems, I'm probably going to be watching this one again. There's some interesting ideas, some fun action. Gratuitous violence? Sure. but there's also something attractive to a character like Lucy, a blank, robotic, hyper-intelligent human (still not sure how intelligence alone let's you speak any language, but...). It's the same thing that attracts us to...to.... you know, those other films with robotic characters. Not really my thing. Terminator? Judge Dredd? That kind of thing, anyway. And while I wish that this film had gone full on sci-fi and not bothered using science myths to back it's theories up, they clearly took some time.
And really, I can't complain about a film that randomly shows clips of animals.
My recommendation is to give it a go, suspend your logical, cynical self and just enjoy it for the weird, freaky little film that it is.
The reviews were mixed. The plot was meant to be confusing, it was generally meant to be.... weird.
And it is. Spoiler alert, by the way.
Lucy.
Lucy is one of those stand-alone sci-fi films with an artsy twist. I went into it full of suspicion that this was going to be a massive disappointment.
It doesn't really waste any time at the beginning. No real set-up, no character introduction. A boyfriend and girlfriend are having a tiff in front of a hotel, the guy wants Lucy to take a case inside for him. Lucy, sensibly, says "Wait, no, that's really weird. I'm not going to do that, I've only been dating you a week weirdo."
And her boyfriend says, "well, it's handcuffed to you now. See ya."
Lucy walks inside the building, and we start cutting back and forth to animals. A mouse beside a mouse trap. A big cat hunting a gazelle. The imagery is a bit on the nose, I admit, but I like animals so that's OK.
Boyfriend is killed in front of Lucy, she is captured (and the gazelle is dragged to the ground by the cheetah. Some more people are shot as she's taken upstairs and forced to open the case. Inside are four packages full of blue...
They're crystals. Quite big crystals. And yet everyone throughout the film continuously refers to it as "powder". There's a difference folks. A guinea pig... sorry, a guy is brought it and forced to sniff a tiny amount. He goes crazy, then he's shot. I have no idea what the kill count is for this film.
Actually, something does bother me about this scene. As far as we see, they never re-bag the drug, but they just poked a massive hole in one of them. It's the little things that irritate me.
Lucy asks a few questions through an interpreter, manages to convince the big baddie (no idea what his name is) not to kill her. She is hit over the head and wakes up a period of time later with a bandaged abdomen. Big baddie and evil guy the second (no idea what his name is either) bring her and three others into a room and lecture them about how they absolutely mustn't try to run or anything or their family, up to extended cousins will be killed. Not entirely sure why they point that out exactly. I can't really imagine being in a state of mind where my parents and siblings being killed wasn't enough to make me obedient, but ooh, add some people who I know fairly well and like quite a lot but who I really only share a teeny amount of DNA with is going to sway me. Also, I'm sorry but killing parents/siblings and making it look like an accident is easy. But maybe killing an entire extended family as well makes it... kind of obvious. Might make people look into it, you know?
Anyway. A dramatic hood is put over Lucy's head. She murmurs her escape plan to herself... out loud...
When the hood is removed, she's in an undetermined place. I wasn't sure when watching it if she'd been on the plane to another place yet or not. Later it turns out she has. This raises questions for me, because I thought the point of a drug mule was to go through security, however she was clearly smuggled through. Or they just didn't bother to show us the airport bit?
Anyway. A guard tries to grope her, she says no and it soundly beaten up. The bag inside her abdomen splits and...
She throws a magic seizure, hitting the wall, the ceiling... How she isn't smashed into a million pieces, I have no idea.
Maybe this is a time to mention Morgan Freeman. We randomly swap to watching him give a lecture every now and then, telling a group of.... students? Is it a conference or something? I'm not really sure who he's talking to. Anyway, the topic is "humans only use 10% of their brains, imagine how amazing it would be if we used 20, 30, 100..."
Remember this is sci-fi. The "we only use 10% of our brain" thing is a myth. Anyway, this is the point where it becomes relevant to the plot, because mysterious blue "powder" has made Lucy into a superhuman who uses more than 10% of her brain. This makes her incredibly able to fight, smart her way out of situations, and shoot people. There's a lot of shooting people, as she works her way out of imprisonment and to a random hospital. On the way, killing many people, including a taxi driver whose crime was not speaking English. I think she's meant to be the hero of this story.
When she arrives at the hospital, she finds her way to theatre and barges in. Having spent a lot of time trying to get into theatres it's much harder than she makes it look. Even though she has a gun.Which she uses again, by the way, to shoot the guy having brain surgery, because she analyses his brain activity and decides he wasn't going to live anyway. Then she threatens to kill the surgeon if he doesn't cut the blue powder out of her... without anaesthetic. While calling her mum. I mean... sure. I know I would definitely calmly operate on someone who had just killed my last patient.
Now I start to get confused about where she is in the world. She flies somewhere, and arrives in Paris? I mean, I thought she had no money and no passport, but OK. On the plane, she starts.... dissolving? Her teeth fall out, her skin tears away and powdered human flies off in all directions whenever she moves. She goes into the plane bathroom and takes the rest of the blue powder to stabilise herself. Then walks out past the shocked passengers and crew to no comment.
Her next move is to go to the police. Fair enough. I wish more people did that. She creepy-magically knows the colour of the pen in the desk next to the person she's talking to. Not sure how, creepy-magic. The police agree to help her... for some reason, and set about tracking down the other drug mules. She uses the same creepy-magic to contact Morgan Freeman and arrange to meet him.
The drug mules are captured and all brought to the same place. For some reason. They were all going to different countries, so... This makes them really easy to catch for the original owners of the drugs, who show up, break into this super secure police custody place and start cutting the packs out of the mules. Lucy shows up with her police friend, there's a fight, she ends up with the magic blue powder, there's a car chase.
Now we're getting up to the climax. It's baddies with guns against Morgan Freeman, his group of scientists and police guy. Lucy absorbs the rest of the blue powder while police and baddies shoot at each other in a meaningless way. Lucy has a trippy... trip, through history and around the world, presumably representing her amazing computer-ishness. Then, just before a baddie shoots, her, she fully becomes a computer. The baddies are all killed, and the scientists and police guy gather around the computer as it dissolves into ash, leaving behind just a USB stick.
"Where did she go?" Police guy asks.
His phone buzzes
"I am everywhere" is on the screen.
Enigmatic.
That's how it ends, leaving us with the question...
What exactly is this film?
Is it deeply philosophical, pondering what the human mind might be capable of achieving?
Is it a gritty action film?
Is it sci-fi, or a superhero flick?
I honestly have no idea.
So what do I think? Well, the acting can be a bit weird. Lucy goes from party animal to terrified hostage to... basically an emotionless computer. I think that's meant to be part of the story, Lucy's battle to remain human. It kind of isn't though. There are a few references, a few suggestions, but nothing that really sells that plotline to me.
The plot. That's another thing. Most of the time, I have no idea where in the world the characters are. Hell, I don't even really know where the story begins. The US? I guess? Beyond that... I don't know where she was trafficking the drugs to, I don't know how this whole "drugs mule" thing is meant to work in this universe...
I like this film. There's problems, with the plot, with the characters, with the acting. People exist in this film for reasons I honestly don't understand. They often aren't named, they aren't developed... why does police guy decide to help Lucy? What motivates him to risk his life for her? We'll never know. So you're probably thinking this is a bad film. And... maybe? But it's fun, honestly. Despite it's problems, I'm probably going to be watching this one again. There's some interesting ideas, some fun action. Gratuitous violence? Sure. but there's also something attractive to a character like Lucy, a blank, robotic, hyper-intelligent human (still not sure how intelligence alone let's you speak any language, but...). It's the same thing that attracts us to...to.... you know, those other films with robotic characters. Not really my thing. Terminator? Judge Dredd? That kind of thing, anyway. And while I wish that this film had gone full on sci-fi and not bothered using science myths to back it's theories up, they clearly took some time.
And really, I can't complain about a film that randomly shows clips of animals.
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