Lucy (Scarlett Johannson) was a student studying at Taiwan and a fairly wild child. Her boyfriend (sort of) involved her with a Korean gangster syndicate's drug trafficking business and they forced her to deliver a packet of new drug. The drug somehow entered her body system and triggered her brain to reach its full potential.
I was pretty excited to watch this movie because I'm always interested in the concept of elevating one's potential by unlocking the unused parts of his/her brain. I already expressed it in my Limitless (2011) review.
Let me talk about the lead first. Scarlett Johannson. Unlike most men I know, I don't think of her as sexy. Probably because I'm more inclined to liking girls like Gal Gadot and Zoe Saldana. Her physique is not a problem though. I have a problem with her acting. It's not bad, but it's not to my liking mostly because she pouts her lips most of the time and the tone of her voice is rather flat. Overall, she's as good as she normally is in most of her movies.
The movie's tone is set to be sort of like a documentary. Casting Morgan Freeman as a professor with expertise in the field is clearly a brilliant choice since he's been narrating so many documentaries. Watching this movie gave me the feeling of watching a documentary of the full potential of the human brain. Fictitious documentary? Hmm... I'm not sure about the correct term. I think those who dislike this movie expected it to be an action flick. Nope, the action part is just added to attract more viewers (in my opinion). The heart of it is the explanation of an unproven scientific hypothesis.
Even though I said that the action is not the focus, but the scenes are still fun to watch and quite engaging. My favorite scene is the car chase scene. Really put me at the edge of my seat.
Visual effects, though not without flaws, are stunning, which is not a surprise in this era. The part when Lucy discovered time travel (sort of) is really interesting to watch.
All in all, I think that this movie is very interesting to watch and I really like it simply because I'm so into the concept. The visuals are stunning, Scar Jo is good, and the tone of the movie is set to be quite like a documentary.
8 out of 10 stars
Okey, I would like to briefly discuss about the movie since many do not understand what Lucy is all about. I'm sure all of you got the general idea - this movie is about unlocking one's brain capacity. Just like what Morgan Freeman said, most humans only use 10% of the brain. Yes, even the most genius of us cannot break that barrier.
Lucy broke the barrier with the help of a newly developed drug. At earlier stage, she could have full control of her own body.
Our brain stores data. Every sensation - touch, sight, hearing, taste and so on - becomes data and stored in parts of our brain. We actually do have the data on how it was like when we first born but we cannot open the folder because of the barrier. We forget things not because the data is deleted or replaced by other datas but it's because the drawer is locked. Lucy, after breaking the barrier, called her mom to express how much she loved her simply because she remembered everything. During the scene at the hospital, she was able to access all memories. She had the key to every drawer in her brain.
Just imagine what would it be like to be able to remember everything that you've learned. Not just parts but the whole freaking thing! Exams would be a piece of cake.
Next stage is cell manipulation. She was able to change her hair in the airport scene. I've always always dreamed of having that kind of power. Yes, cell manipulation. That's my dream superpower. Now, you see, our bodies are made of billions and billions of cell and each cell has its duty or function to perform and they perform it automatically. When we walk, the muscle cells automatically react. When we're sick, our natural defense system kicks in automatically. When we're injured, our body automatically repair themselves.
What if we can hijack each cell and 'command' them to do anything that we want it to do? Instead of just waiting for our injured skin to slowly patch it up automatically, we can just command those cells to regenerate at top speed and heal the injury in no time. We can order muscle & bone cells to duplicate themselves and grow ourselves new set of limbs. Anything is possible when you have command of all cellular parts of your bodies. Wow... If I had that kind of ability, I would grow myself some wings and fly like a bird. I would make myself taller. I could change my gender without plastic surgery and eat bananas in public just to see people's reaction.
The more advanced part of cell manipulation is to be able to alter & manipulate other people's cell. That's how she was able to make people at the hospital faint just by lifting her hand.
The ones mention above are the limit of my imagination. The higher stages, I haven't fantasized yet.
In the higher stages, Lucy was able to control space and gravity. The part when she stopped the Korean gangs by not allowing them to touch her and removing them of their firearms.
Then, in the final stages, Lucy gained the ability to 'travel time'. Well, actually she didn't really travel. What she did when she sat on the chair and sucked all of the remaining brain enhancing drug was she accessed all of the data stored in her brain, including ancient data.
Crucial data is passed down by our ancestors via our DNA strands. That means, we actually have the information of how earth really looked like during the dinosaur times stored in our brain. In Science, it is called innate knowledge. We do have billions and billions of data in our brain and we inherited the data through reproduction. The data that we collect in our brain is passed on to our child and ours and our child's data is passed on to our child's child and the process continues. Therefore, the one that possesses most data at this very time is the baby that's just born at this very moment.
Lucy accessed that data, she browsed through all the data from current to ancient, when she sat on the chair.
Why would she wanna do that? Why would she want to learn about the secrets of the universe? Well, to share it with the world.
The reason why she created a whole new alien looking super computer was because she wanted to store all the data that she had learned so that she could share it with everyone.
At the end, she gave Morgan Freeman the cosmic pendrive. That nice looking pendrive stored an infinite number of data. Every knowledge, every history, every records was in it. From the time before our galaxy was formed, before the big bang! SEMUANYA ADA DI DALAM PENDRIVE TU!!! Aku rasa mati hidup balik pun, kita takkan habis pelajari semua data yang Lucy kumpulkan. Unless we have Lucy's abilities of course.
Why did Lucy disappeared at the end? Nope, she didn't disappear. She just took a new form. The part when her body became dark? That's her forming herself a new set of body.
Just look at your phone. Your smartphone is actually a very powerful computer. Ancient computers were as big as a room. But as technology advanced, our computers became smaller and smaller. In the future, our computers will be in microscopic size. Nano technology!
So, at the end, Lucy just transformed herself in billions of nano computers. That's why she said she's everywhere. Dia dah jadi debu yang berterbangan. Debu yang sangat sangat sangat la canggih.
When she said, at the end, you know your role (or something like that). Ramai yang tak faham ayat tersebut. Simple. Your role is actually to share knowledge. Peranan anda ialah untuk mewarisi segala maklumat dan pengetahuan kepada generasi akan datang melalui reproduction.
Jadi, mari la kita melahirkan zuriat agar lebih banyak data - data dapat dikumpul di dalam otak kita (secara kita sedar atau tak sedar) dan diwarisi. Lets make more and more kids so that more and more data can be collected and passed on to future generations.
That's the moral of the story la.
The end.
