Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson, isn't the movie that's being advertised, but it's an interesting and entertaining science-fiction character study.
The Box Office:
Even though Luc Besson is a pretty well-known name inside the various film circles, he hasn't exactly much big-scale box office success, especially not in America. Even as a producer, the vast majority of his pictures were genuine B-movie action romps with a distinctly European flavor and a rather skewed amorality. Aside from the Taken films, his biggest film as a producer is Transporter 3, which earned $103 million worldwide. As a director, his understandably less-prolific resume boasts just one genuine "hit," specifically The Fifth Element which earned a whopping $263m at the worldwide box office. The next one is Arthur and the Invisibles, which earned $107m worldwide but cost $86m to produce. So it's a little odd to be talking about Luc Besson's Lucy as a potential honest-to-goodness blockbuster.
If the tracking and buzz is to be believed, Lucy, which stars Scarlett Johansson as an unwilling drug mule whose illicit package explodes inside her and gives her brain-warping super powers, should open to around $40 million this weekend. That's rather impressive and would put "Scarlett Johansson - action star" in an exclusive club of female action stars, a small club that includes Angelina Jolie and... uh... Angelina Jolie. Johansson is red-hot thanks to Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Under the Skin, so this will be an interesting test of her "all by myself" box office draw.
Helping her will be Morgan Freeman, as the man who gravely explains to you and me exactly what happens. Mr. Exposition didn't do much for Transcendence, but he's generally the very definition of an added-value-element. He helped propel Olympus Has Fallen, Oblivion, and Now You See Me to $30m+ debuts last year and certainly won't "hurt" the box office prospects for Lucy. For the record, the Universal (Comcast Corporation) release cost EuropaCorp just $40 million to produce, so let's not go crazy if the R-rated film doesn't open as big as we'd all like this weekend.
Luc Besson's biggest domestic success as a director is The Fifth Element, with a whopping $63m in 1997 ($110m adjusted for inflation) with nothing over $36m after that. Still, the buzz is white hot and the marketing has been rock-solid, teasing visual wonders without revealing too much of the story. The other films this weekend are Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's Hercules from Paramount, which will live or die on the "all by myself" star power of its star, and the Michael Douglas/Diane Keaton comedy And So It Goes from Clarius Entertainment.
There is a real opening for a female action star not explicitly connected to a dystopian young-adult fantasy novel, especially with Underworld possibly finished and Resident Evil winding down. This year has seen a real run of genuinely successful female-centric studio releases in a variety of genres, so here's hoping that Lucy can add "female-centric superhero/superpowers action film" to that streak.
The Review:
The good news is that Lucy has more on its mind than surface level thrills and trailer-friendly action. The bad news, at least from a box office standpoint, is that if you've seen the handful of trailers and TV spots for Luc Besson's sci-fi thriller, you've basically seen most of the action the film has to offer. The film has been heavily sold as a "watch Scarlett Johansson kick butt with her new-found superpowers" action picture, but it's really not that movie at all. What action there is feels like an obligation for the sake of the marketing campaign, a distraction from the real meat that Besson and company want to explore.
Of course, since almost all of the science is founded on the "humans only use 10% of their brain" myth, we're never sure if Morgan Freeman is in-fact pontificating about utter nonsense. Besson's lightning-fast thriller (it's about 82 minutes without credits) hits the ground running, with Johansson's graduate student living in Taipei, Taiwan and about to be unwittingly made into a drug mule. The first act of the film is mostly set up, and there is a real slow-building tension to her captivity and the matter-of-fact torment by her mob-affiliated captors.
Long-story-short, Lucy ends up with a bag of a new street drug sewn into her belly and the rupturing of said bag kick-starts a process that quickly allows her to use exponentially more than the "normally allotted 10% of her brain. A bit of crowd-pleasing revenge beats do ensue, but as Lucy becomes less concerned with human emotions and desires, the enhanced young woman is exclusively concerned with keeping her self-preservation, with the knowledge that she can't survive for long in this post-human state. The film becomes less concerned with human-scale entertainment value as well, as the crime plot fades further into the background and only pops up for the sake of gratuitous violence.
There is much that will remind viewers of the recent Transcendence, even had Morgan Freeman not appeared in both as an official "scientist who gravely explains the science" audience surrogate. Lucy is a better film, certainly more entertaining and better paced, but it also struggles with the challenges of telling a character study around an individual who no longer has conventional emotions or desires. The film's best scene is an explosion of emotion as the still confused Lucy calls her mother and pours out her new-found appreciation for a thousand random acts of kindness. But from that point on, the film follows a cold, mostly emotionless quasi-robot as she embarks on quest for self-preservation while sharing some (scientifically questionable but genuinely interesting) ideas about humanity and life itself.
Those who have spent the last decade upset that Neo didn't start The Matrix Reloaded as all-powerful as he seemed to be at the end of The Matrix will get something of a reckoning with Lucy. We see the challenge of staging an action adventure film with a character who can literally bend space and time at will. Of course, that makes the third act exceptionally frustrating as Lucy can't be bothered to take thirty seconds away from the task at hand and remove the bad guys from the situation. Her resulting inaction leads not only to the violent deaths of quite a few cops and bystanders but also a pointless and time-wasting climactic shoot-out.
For most of the film, what action there is seems like a commercial concession, and while it is well-staged it is clear that Besson's heart is in the scientific possibilities being explored. And there are some genuinely wonderful visuals on display as well, even if the special effects somewhat blur together by the end of the picture. Johansson is terrific, proving once again that she (like Anthony Hopkins) is far more at home in would-be pulp fiction than in so-called serious pictures. The rest of the cast gets little to do other than react to Lucy but no one falls down on the job.
Lucy is not the film being advertised, but yet the trailer-friendly action beats take precious screen time away from the movie Luc Besson seemingly wanted to make. There is a thematic richness to the material that concentrates on a normal young woman coming to terms with unwillingly entering a "transhumanist" state, and I appreciate the emphasis on ideas over explosions. Lucy is visually unlike anything Mr. Besson has ever made, even if it once again concerns a woman forced into a life she did not choose but nonetheless excelling at her new-found calling. It's not the "lady warrior kicks butt" action spectacular that the marketing has promised, but it is an equally interesting and engaging bit of sci-fi pulp. There are those who will want the movie they were promised. I'm pretty happy with the movie we got.
