“Lucy” may well be the most peculiar movie of summer 2014. Director Luc Besson strangely amalgamates high-brow ambitions with B-movie antics. It amounts to a simple-minded film about big ideas, something far less than Besson achieved on “The Professional,” but I’d be lying if I didn’t have a decent amount of fun on the ride.
Clearly Besson feels more comfortable in the realm of the non-human, staging vibrantly kinetic car chases and action sequences with flashy visuals. These sequences have a definite panache to them, which is good given that they largely have to power the entire film.
Besson keeps “Lucy” moving at a swift clip, so brisk that you almost don’t have time to think about how excruciatingly bad his inane dialogue is. It’s obvious that he views words as means to the ends of expression and plot development, not ends in and of themselves. Worst of all, these unimaginative lines are delivered by Scarlett Johansson and company with feeling equivalent to rote recitation, rendering the film’s human element unintentionally laughable.
The film’s editing could have used some work, too. Besson begins the film by heavy-handedly intercutting animals and prey with the events of the story (a clumsy attempt to be artful). Then, he cross-cuts an intellectual lecture given by a professor played by Morgan Freeman (an obvious ploy to be taken seriously on an intellectual level) between multiple scenes of Lucy. If you think about it, the edit really makes no sense as it either has no sense of time … or Freeman’s Samuel Norman is giving the world’s longest address!
It’s a new year for the “F.I.L.M.” column, but more importantly, it’s the home stretch of the Oscar season! Soon enough, the intense politics will start to die down and we will just be left to reflect on the performances and the movies. To celebrate the season, the next seven weeks of the “F.I.L.M. of the Week” series will be devoted to covering little-seen and underrated gems from the 2010 nominees.
Marshall and the Movies 
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