Writer: Casey Chong

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Watch this if you liked: "The Fifth Element", "The Matrix", "Wanted" and "Limitless"

The Good, the Bad and the Lucid:
It took 17 years for French director Luc Besson to finally return into sci-fi territory after his 1997's cult classic "The Fifth Element". And just like how he made women look good and cool playing action heroines (e.g. Anne Parillaud in "La Femme Nikita" and Milla Jovovich in "The Fifth Element"), he hit a similar jackpot with Scarlett Johansson. Except this time Besson's new movie, "Lucy", isn't the kind of straightforward action-packed territory that most trailers might led you to believe. Instead, Besson goes gonzo by mixing everything from the complicated sci-fi mumbo jumbo of "The Matrix", adrenaline-fueled craze of "Crank" to cautionary techno-thriller genre of "Transcendence" with a mix of existential style of Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" and a little of the National Geographic channel. It's a fun movie as long as you don't take it so seriously, while Besson's energetic visual palette keeps the pace reasonably brisk. But the real deal here is Scarlett Johansson's mesmerising performance as Lucy. Although "Lucy" only runs 90 minutes, there are times where Besson tends to go heavy-handed with expository-filled dialogues about neuroscience. It's like as if Besson is trying to feed us quite a share of a neuroscience lesson.

Look Out For:
The brief but intense car chase scene through the busy streets of downtown Paris and the cool scene where Lucy uses her nearly maximum brain capacity to "transport" herself through different time and place between past and present.

Trivia:
"Lucy" actually took 9 years to make when director Luc Besson first got the idea from a woman who happened to be a neuroscientist. He spent subsequent years developing the script while researching the subject with neuroscientists.

Best Watched With:
Those who can't get enough of watching Scarlett Johansson in a dramatic role after her recent impressive turn as Black Widow in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier".

Cinema Online, 20 August 2014