Should Have Been Mindless Fun
When Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is forced to deliver a brief case to Mr. Jang (Min-sik Choi) it is the start of a nightmare as she ends up having a synthetic drug sewn into her stomach which ends up leaking when she is roughed up by a couple of men. But as the drugs leak in to her system it has a strange side effect as it starts to unlock Lucy's mind so she can use 100% of its power. But whilst she tries to make sense of her now powers and what it means to how she sees and understands the universe she also has to deal with Mr. Jang and his men coming after her.
Oh "Lucy", I so wanted you to be a great movie but sadly you let me down like a couple of other Lucy's have done in my life. And sadly I know exactly what went wrong as we have this simple storyline about a woman who ingests a drug which unlocks the full power of her mind allowing her to do, amongst various things, kick the butt of those who forced the drugs into her. But to dry and turn this into more than a chick kicking butt movie writer and director Luc Besson has tried to make it more with lots of visual effects and depth when it comes to Lucy's understanding of the world. Unfortunately this side ends up becoming too distracting as it seems like Besson got distracted with trying out various computer effects.
And it is a shame because when "Lucy" is focused purely on Lucy gaining greater control of her unlocked mind whilst kicking butt it is an entertaining movie. I will even say that Scarlett Johansson's casting is a stroke of genius as not only does she deliver the butt kicking chick side of it but also the emotionless side as Lucy's knowledge changes her completely.
What this all boils down to is that "Lucy" is a simple idea for a movie which if it kept things simple it would have an entertaining 90 minutes. Unfortunately the director is gone overboard on the special effects side which end up distracting from the simple entertainment.