The Luc in Lucy

Welcome to the close of another week folks! Casual Fridays! This weekend we have a few movies coming out that should fit the build for a wide variety of movie tastes. First on the agenda: Lucy, The new Sci-Fi Action film from the wonderful mind of Luc Besson.

The movie stars Scarlett Johansson as Lucy, an inexperienced college girl  traveling the world on a “quest for knowledge” we’ll call it (you might just say drinking and partying with exotic backdrops). Lucy finds herself realizing she made some bad decisions that land her in a deal of questionable origin. It’s nonstop honest-to-goodness action flick that keeps your attention the whole time and begs the question: what if we could use the full potential of our minds?

Luc Besson is, without a doubt, one of my favorite directors/writers. He has some misses but, overall when he tells a Sci-Fi story, he generally gets it right. The cinematic world we live in today is filled with reboots, retries, sequels, adaptations, and franchises; but what I like about Besson, is that he still shows that good original content is still out there. Lucy gives you the feeling that you are watching what happens when one small idea blossoms into something fun and exciting. Movies have always done that throughout history. At their finest, they always ask the question what if? Lucy is one of those stories that makes you feel like you’re sitting in a lecture hall and day dream the possibilities of theory your professor is speaking about.

The visuals were stunning, Besson frames like he’s painting. You can tell his direction is heavily influenced by his aquatic studies (he actually was studying to be a marine biologist before getting into film) most of his frames in the film have a very fluid nature to them. There’s almost a aquatic dance motion to the action sequences in the film.

For her first time out in an action film, Johansson kills as Lucy (literally). It’s nice to see her in the lead as oppose to her supporting roles in Marvel films as Black Widow. It was interesting to see her characters transformation from start to end of the film. It felt like Johansson as Lucy took the human mind where Bradley Cooper as Eddie (in Limitless, another great film by the way) was afraid to go.

Morgan Freeman is always a joy to watch and, more importantly, listen to. Lucy plays to Freeman’s strengths in this film as he serves not only as a character that understands Lucy, but as our narrator (or professor for the lecture). Besson’s cool use of Freeman to give us exposition throughout the film really ties everything together. It’s not overpowering and feels right.

Overall, this film was a nonstop thrill from start to finish and definitely deserves a look over in the theater. Don’t fret spending your money on this one. It’s worth every cent.