Lucy (7.5/10)

I wish I have a calendar that will last until 15 years later from today, where it will remind me to re-watch Lucy; because I am going to be so bold and claim that this movie from the futuristic mind of Luc Besson is way ahead of its time. If this movie came out 15 or even 10 years later, maybe it will be more well-received.

I can see why nobody liked it. First, it's marketing. We were duped to believe that this was an all-out action movie with Scarlett Johansson using some crazy moves kicking ass from start to finish. We did get a little bit of that, and sure I would have liked to see more, but with this story, I'm good.

Second, the concept has been poo-pooed by some as copying Neil Burger's adaptation of Limitless. Sure, the resemblance was clear, but this was the sci-fi version of Limitless with totally different abilities after unlocking the human mind.

And finally, why people didn't get this movie was because of the unrealistic views of the capabilities of the human mind once it has unlocked beyond 20%.

I was hesitant, too, at first when I saw what Johansson's character could do. But as the story unfolded, as Besson's concept became clearer, I began to enjoy the movie more and more.

I am not going to sit here and say that I understood the movie completely or what Besson's vision was, because I didn't. It was a very complex imagining of what the mind is capable of if one could go higher than the 10% usage. But through my own interpretation of using the molecules around the air near the skin, the mind could in essence control those molecules through the vibration of the cells in the body. Far fetched? Sure, but it could be possible, especially in a sci-fi world.

Another brilliant casting, other than Johansson and Morgan Freeman, was Choi Min Sik. I loved, loved his work in Oldboy and under Besson's direction, his character was like one that jumped out of Oldboy. He was fierce and intimidating and looked every bit the menacing triad leader. I would love to see the pairing of Besson and Choi once more because I couldn't get enough here!

And Choi was a big part of how incredible the first 15 minutes of this movie was. He stole all the scenes he was in.

The only inconsistent bits of the movie was when Lucy was on the run and left a lot of destruction in her wake. To me, she was supposed to be very calculative, albeit impatient, like when she killed off a patient in the hospital because it was a lost cause situation. But creating potential deaths in the car-chase was a little bit out of characteristics, especially when we as the audience were supposed to get behind her.

In that sense, Besson forego a little bit of the humanity of Lucy in place of heart-pumping action sequences.

The movie started off as a 9 for me, slowly dropped down to a 5, but once I learned to accept it, it climbed back up to an 8. But I'll just leave it as a 7.5 because the hallway gun-fight was quite messy, even though beautifully shot.