Luc Besson takes his basic girl-with-guns template ('Nikita'/'The Fifth Element'/'Colombiana') and applies it to the same concept as 'Limitless'. What would happen if a smart drug could tap into the latent powers of the human mind? The answer is invincibility, car chases, killshots, rocket launchers, fast montages, big questions, evolution, spirituality, time travel, some blah blah about the internet and glowing eyes. I loved it.
You can tick off all the usual Besson tropes and obsessions quite quickly. There is a badass heroine, some emotional melodrama, eye popping visuals, operatic violence, humorous action sequences, a super stylised Paris backdrop and weird offbeat moments. His aesthetic derives from French comic books rather than cinematic history. It's slick and commercial Hollywood material but done with a European sensibility. It's what he's been doing for decades now. His films aren't always good but they are never boring and 'Lucy' sees a return to form of sorts.
It's all utter nonsense of course but propelled so fast that you don't really care. It helps that Scarlett Johansen is a good actress. She convincingly transforms from airhead to superwoman and keeps you connected emotionally. When she cries, when she's scared it really packs a punch. For the most part she just has to strut down corridors looking focused; even so she still manages to communicate enough to let you know that she is aware of her own transcendence and both awed and confused by what she is becoming. Morgan Freeman is reliably Morgan Freeman in the Morgan Freeman-explains-everything to-thickos-in-the-audience role.
As an action film it paints itself into a corner in the final act and plot wise has nowhere to go. Thematically, however it goes....everywhere.... and you should be smart enough to realise by this point that Besson has only been using the trappings of the action genre to get us thus far. What he really wants to do, it becomes apparent, is throw you into a spin with some sci-fi philosophising. It's loopy as hell; on a par with' The Transporter' suddenly doing a U-turn and becoming 'The Matrix'. This is Luc Besson making his '2001: A Space Odyssey' statement. The head scratching finale also has a great punchline that will have you working backwards to connect the dots in a satisfying fashion....or will just make you shrug your soldiers and think - "well, that was okay....but I didn't really get it".
It's as daft in its own way as 'Noah' but a lot less turgid to sit through. Go and see this particular girl with the kaleidoscope eyes.
'Lucy' in the sky with diamonds.
Indeed.
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