Lucy: A Movie Review

A way overdue movie review for a movie most people probably aren't going to watch/rewatch now.

Lucy... the New Woman.

Directed by Luc Besson, this movie is reminiscent of the Fifth Element, the Professional and other action movies. There is more than enough action to go around, but there is more than meets the eye...

Plot Summary

Credits. A cell becomes 2 cells, then 4 cells, then 8 cells, doubling.

We open with an ape/chimp/monkey drinking from a river. A montage ensues taking us through the passage of time, of human progress from prehistoric to civilization to horse-drawn to modern Taipei.

A young woman, Lucy, is persuaded to be a drug mule. She gets the drugs inserted into her abdomen before being sent to another country. Unfortunately, she is intercepted by a rival gang, where she gets beaten up. The package in her abdomen rips open, and she begins to become superhuman. Overcoming her captors with extreme ease, she proceeds to take revenge on the drug gangs, informing the authorities of the situation.

While things cool down, she goes to contact a certain top expert (Morgan Freeman) in this field. She tells him she has "read all his research" and wants to know what is going to happen to her. He does not know. She tells him she knows that the drug CPH4 is slowly killing her.

So, she goes back to exacting revenge on the gangs, but this time, with the goal of retrieving all the other drugs. She finds that she needs it to survive.

Eventually, she meets the Expert, who has brought his fellow top-expert friends along (they look like bewildered dorks). They analyze the drug, while a firefight ensues outside, between the authorities and the gang who want their drugs back.

Eventually, the gang breaks through, after employing an anti-tank missile. The gang boss hangs there, his pistol aimed at Lucy. I can't think why he would do such a thing, but it seems to be important to the plot.

A time travel sequence brings Lucy backwards and forwards in space and time, as she appears to gain the ability to effortlessly manipulate space and time. Eventually, she returns to the room only to become this black goo that eats all the equipment in the room

The movie ends with the villains dead and a shiny, space-black flashdrive being created.

Analysis

Here are some truly significant excerpts I thought everyone who did/didn't watch the movie should know.

When cells grow in a hostile environment, they will choose immortality.
When cells grow in a friendly environment, they reproduce.

The Myth of 10% Brain usage

Are we really using 10% of the brain's neurons? No, that's just an urban myth. I'm thinking 10% potential sounds about right - my brain could be doing wildly awesome things, but only after the training and learning required to even comprehend such knowledge bases.

"One factor to rule them all" CPH4. For some, a growth hormone. For others, certain death from overdose.

The Role of Force

While most of the action (shooting and car-chases) are pretty much for entertainment, much of the brutality is there to shock. By that, I mean the hiding of drugs in the abdomen via surgery.

The Obsolete of the State

Before being tipped off by Lucy, drug enforcement officials are sitting around and basically ineffective. Their security measures are pretty useless too.

If you think about it, the only reason why drugs must be smuggled via such extreme means is because the drugs are illegal. Understanding this, Lucy was as much a victim of the State, as she was of the mafia-like drug gang.

Men are Useless

Yes, that's right. Feminism is everywhere. Every man are absolutely and totally useless. The cops, all men, are only good for killing the criminals, who are also, all men. The "top scientists" of all fields are men, but all are incompetent jaw-droppers in the face of almighty Lucy. Lucy's sidekicks all want her sexually, but Lucy is like this asexual organism.

If women were given the treatment the men are given, the movie would never be made. When men are treated this way, most men have no problems with it.

2001:A Space Odyssey

Honestly, I can never cease to be amazed at how many tributes to 2001:A Space Odyssey are in remotely sci-fi, philosophical movies. Lucy is uncannily similar to 2001 in plot and visual metaphor.

The Matrix

Anonymous agents perfectly dressed in black suits? Uploading yourself into any screen or electronic device? Downloading skills and information at will? The bending of reality?

The violent, deceptive Win-Lose world. The Win-Win world evolves out of the Win-Lose cut-throat world. Technology grows out of it. That's the story of the human race, for now. What is done with the technology determines whether we boom or bust.

Integration. 

The Singularity, achievable by recognizing fully human potential. It is not machines who will cause the Singularity, but human beings aided by machines.

The meaning of life

In a voice over at the beginning of the film we hear "Life was given to us a billion years ago. What have we done with it?" At the film's conclusion another voice over tells us "Life was given to us a billion years ago. Now you know what you can do with it." 

At the end of her lifespan, she turns all her knowledge into a USB flashdrive and hands it to the scientists to help the world. The movie argues that the meaning of life is to realize you are part of a bigger whole, and so serving the world is the meaning of your life, and everybody's.

Internet of EVERYTHING

Download any skill, all of every kind of science. Hardwork all nonsense now. Beat the experts of different fields within a few seconds, by somehow reading everything they ever published. Isn't that a modern, info-age notion of Enlightenment, as being able to process data and make decisions quickly.

Cell Mitosis, Cell Integration. Monoliths.

Cells separate, and specialize as a human being grows. Eventually though, the film makes the argument that self-actualization is achieved by becoming whole again.

Deux Ex Machina. You know exactly what's going to happen the moment she starts evolving...10%...20%...30%...40%... so on ... 100%. You know no bullet can touch her.

Digital Immortality, if you so choose to accept it.

In the end, Lucy becomes this organic supercomputer that proceeds to consume all the other computers in the room, before creating a USB flashdrive to store all that she had learnt. She then ceases to be a physical form, turning the screens to "I am everywhere". 

Which reminds me of... the starchild at the end of 2001.

Transcending physical existence is one of those things that only movies and art can do. The movie makers have full control of the "reality" on screen, its space and time... and even your mind. You may not be conscious of all the details, but your unconscious is affected... all the time. As the name "unconscious" goes, you are

Think it Through Critically, or Be Subconsciously Programmed...