Entertainment
12 Years Later, This Ruthless Sci-Fi Flop Has Aged Like Fine Wine
It’s a commonly accepted fact that human beings only use 10 percent of their brains, and if people can accomplish so much without even being able to access all of the resources at their disposal, what would happen if someone found a way to tap into the remaining 90 percent? That question, based on that very much true fact, is the basis of Luc Besson’s 2014 sci-fi action movie Lucy. The movie made a ton of money, specifically $469 million from a $40 million budget, but remains particularly divisive among critics and audiences — despite the fact that it’s pretty cool.
The main reason for some of Lucy’s shaky legacy is that the absolutely true “10 percent of your brain” concept that the movie is based on is actually… completely fake nonsense. That’s the kind of issue that people who point out plot holes because they’re smarter than the movie are unable to get over, much like the hollow earth in the MonsterVerse series, but the counterargument from Lucy fans is, simply: Who cares? Now Lucy is coming to Netflix on April 1, giving everyone a chance to expand how much of their brain they use.
What Is ‘Lucy’ About?
Scarlett Johansson stars as Lucy, a normal woman using a normal percentage of her brain who gets involved with South Korean drug runners. While being forced to transport a bag containing a synthetic sci-fi drug, Lucy is accidentally dosed with a huge amount of the stuff and begins to develop superpowers — super strength, telekinesis, and more. At the same time, though, her emotions and capacity to feel pain are effectively eliminated.
While running from bad guys, Lucy meets up with a scientist (Morgan Freeman) who explains the totally inaccurate “10 percent of your brain” thing. As Lucy starts to use more and more of her brain, she begins to perceive time and reality in new ways. The scientist convinces her that she should find a way to pass on what she has learned about existence, so she takes as much of the drug as she possibly can to finally achieve 100 percent brain power. At that point, things get super weird, and to say anything else would spoil one of the movie’s big thrills.
‘Lucy’ Is a Thrilling Sci-Fi Spectacle
If you can get past the basic premise and all of the “science” being stupid (seriously, people can accept that a lightsaber works, but why can’t we pretend that Lucy takes place in a world where the 10 percent thing is true?), Lucy is a good sci-fi action movie. It plays to Johansson’s strengths, namely her ability to play both very human and very detached from her humanity — which she also tapped into when she played Black Widow in the Marvel movies. Speaking of, Johansson also knows her way around action scenes, which Lucy has plenty of.
Lucy is, ultimately, a dumb movie that has the confidence of a smart movie, which often makes for a fun experience. The Matrix doesn’t feature unimpeachable science (which is perfectly fine, because the genre is called science fiction and not science textbook), but imagine how silly it would be if the Wachowskis had a very wrong idea about how computers work. It would be wild, and Lucy is that kind of wild. That is sort of director Luc Besson’s specialty, though, and Lucy fits in his canon alongside movies like The Fifth Element, La Femme Nikita, and Léon: The Professional. It is a little more grounded than his recent Dracula adaptation, though, which is kind of remarkable since this is a movie based on a concept with even less basis in reality than vampires.
Lucy, as mentioned up above, will be on Netflix on April 1.
- Release Date
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July 25, 2014
- Runtime
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90minutes
- Director
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Luc Besson
- Writers
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Luc Besson
- Franchise(s)
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Lucy
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