Critics Ratings: 1.5 STARS*

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Choi Min-Sik,

Direction:  Luc Besson

Produced: Virginie Silla.

Genre: SCI-FI

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

Lucy. Solid star cast. A director with La Femme Nikita and Léon: The Professional to his credit. And then this happens. (Mild spoilers ahead)

Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is a 25-year-old studying in Taiwan, with a poor taste in acquaintances. Her former boyfriend, the shady Richard (Pilou Asbaek) cons her into delivering a suitcase of mysterious contents to Mr. Jang (Choi Min-sik of Oldboy fame), who exploits her as a drug mule. A bag of drugs is implanted in her stomach, the effects of which neither she nor the audience know of, until an assault by her captor releases it into her bloodstream.

You could say that these are performance-enhancing drugs and that would be an understatement. The blue granular CPH4 powder is racing to expand her brain capacity, which according to the film is only used at 10% of its capacity and according to scientists is rubbished as urban myth. But it’s a Luc Besson film, so you ignore that, never mind the irony of the film being brainless entertainment about being exponentially brainier and reminiscent of Limitless.

But Lucy’s abilities in the film are inversely proportional to the intelligence quotient of the script which goes into a rapid decline after the first 15 minutes. Sure, there is Morgan Freeman, but it is the equivalent of being absent in a cabin which has your name on the door. It is truly a waste of talent and characterisation when all his Professor Samuel Norman does is dole out plot expositions vis-à-vis a PowerPoint presentation or look baffled when Lucy hits her optimum brain capacity and goes into a sort of Transcendence space.

Lucy is flawed from the very outset. There are warning signs in the initial scenes. Her shifty ex-boyfriend makes it a point to mention that Lucy was the name of the first woman, an Australopithecus. The scene where she approaches the reception desk with the briefcase for Mr. Jang is interspersed with sequences of a mouse approaching a cheese trap and a leopard circling an antelope. These are metaphors, in case Mr. Besson’s implications escaped your notice.

They go further downhill after Lucy gets the first rush of the drug and ends up… levitating. Because that is apparently what happens when the brain capacity expands. When a crucial shootout leaves her wounded, she pulls the bullet out of her shoulder. Said bullet should have been crushed upon exiting the handgun, but it is remarkably intact when she fishes it out.

In a bizarre surgery scene, Lucy calls her mother to reminisce over her childhood, remembering details when she was a year or so old. This could have been an effective scene if she hadn’t rounded off the conversation with, “I can remember the taste of your milk in my mouth.” There are some lines you cannot unhear. This one is a clear winner in that category.

The action shifts to France, where an impressive chase sequence comes to a quick end (was it filmed only to be incorporated in the trailer?). Amr Waked is relegated to an unnecessary sidekick as a French police officer.

Stranger still are the aspects of time and its travel towards the end. There is this cringe-worthy moment where Lucy meets the first Lucy and their fingers touch like in Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. Or think closer home like Rohit and Jadoo in Koi Mil Gaya. Also, the climactic carnage is thoroughly unconvincing.

Scarlett Johansson could have done with some serious fight scenes (a la Black Widow) in this film. Instead, she used the power of her mind to make her opponents soar to the ceiling. This skill could have got her recruited into the X-Men fold. That would have redeemed the story somewhat.

Lucy can be avoided. There is great temptation to make brain-shrinking capacity jokes, but there will probably be enough of those to go around. Watch 22 Jump Street instead.