FILM REVIEW: LUCY

Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) in Lucy. 

Knowledge equals power, guns and car chase scenes

By Ed Rampell

Writer-director Luc Besson’s Lucy may be the most visually visionary science fiction movie since Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey. Scarlett Johansson portrays the title character, a foreign student studying at Taipei who is ensnared in a bad drug deal with Taiwanese mobsters. This leads to her ingesting a high dose of a chemical substance called CPH4 that causes Lucy to become hyper-intelligent.

This extraordinarily optically opulent film combines two of Besson’s obsessions: powerful female protagonists and science fiction. Per the latter Besson co-wrote and directed 1997’s The Fifth Element co-starring Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich. Besson’s then-wife went on to star in 1999’s The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (talk about woman warriors!). Previously Anne Parillaud played another action heroine in Besson’s 1990 La Femme Nikita, while Michelle Yeoh depicted the title character in Bresson’s 2011 The Lady, the biopic about what may arguably be Bresson’s most courageous female character ever: Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.  

Besson’s graphic depiction of Lucy’s state of ultra-cosmic consciousness to the extreme is highly cinematic in this film full of stunning cinematography and Sergei Eisenstein-like montage sequences (not so much in terms of their timing but in regards to associational editing). It’s interesting that the more intelligent Lucy becomes the more violent she is -- one of the movie’s many Kubrickian references. In 1971’s A Clockwork Orange the thuggish droogie Alex (Malcolm McDowell) may behave like a soccer hooligan but he’s highly intelligent and a fan of Ludwig van Beethoven. 2001: A Space Odyssey's HAL is a murderous computer (“I’m sorry Dave, but I can’t do that”).  And of course, the proto-human character in the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey wins a fight by cunningly figuring out how to kill his opponent with a weapon (the bone which, in the cinema’s greatest jump cut, becomes a spacecraft when tossed into the air).

Lucy is -- as Johansson’s character is reminded -- also the name of our oldest human-like ancestor, who is glimpsed onscreen at various points in the movie. Her name may also be a reference to the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," especially given the film’s psychedelic cinematography. Lucy becomes a character similar to the savior-like “star child” Dr. Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) is transformed into at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey; during Lucy’s end credits (which, remarkably, include the names of every musician who contributed to the movie’s soundtrack) the lyrics of a song are about a “messiah.” As previously indicated, Besson’s special effects are reminiscent of Kubrick’s as Dullea’s astronaut soars throughout the solar system (although Lucy I is sans monoliths and Richard Strauss’ Thus Spake Zarathustra).

Besson has previously helmed action packed flicks such as Nikita (about a female assassin) and unfortunately, Lucy is full of screeching car chases and blazing gunplay. Although Besson has demonstrated a penchant for violent films, this may be intended as box office insurance to lure the multiplex and male adolescent crowds to buy tickets and popcorn. Given its sidewalk cafes, bookstalls and the like, Paris is the world’s worst city for driving at high speed on the streets (especially since this is the first time Lucy has ever driven a car, as she tells detective Pierre Del Rio, played by Cairo-born Amr Waked). Alas, poor Yorick, Besson should leave the mindless explosions to lesser helmers like Michael Bay. They intrude on and mar what could have been a more philosophical sci-fi cinematic treatise on the nature of knowledge (which, as Lucy shows, is flawed if it’s not accompanied by compassion -- therein lies true wisdom). 

The movie’s negative depictions of Asians also leaves much to be desired.  

Johansson is fine as the CPH4-amped up action star and genius who uses 100 percent of her brain power. Morgan Freeman co-stars as a scientist and it’s fun to see Danish actor Pilou Asbæk -- who plays the troubled spin doctor in the superb Borgen TV series about Denmark’s first woman prime minister and co-starred in the 2012 movie, A Hijacking -- in a smarmy cameo role as Lucy opens. Lucy is for fans of Johansson, female action parts, sci fi and, above all, visionary cinema that imaginatively uses the attributes of the motion picture medium to the max.   

FILM REVIEW: THE AVENGERS

A scene from The Avengers.

Comics con

By Don Simpson

The Avengers may not be a great film, but it is probably the best superhero film ever made -- which is not necessarily saying a lot.

Sure, there are a few exceptions, but even the best superhero films (X-Men, X2, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, The Dark Night) have had their fatal flaws. First and foremost, no superhero film to date has been able to maintain a strong and coherent narrative for the duration of the film. The significance of the story always plays second-fiddle to special effects, action sequences and costumes. That is just the nature of the beast. As film history informs us, superhero films are supposed to be straightforward stories of good versus evil. Sure, sometimes the definitions of good and bad are a little blurred, and good does not always prevail (at least not in the short term), but there is always a superhero (or team of superheroes) and a villain (or a group of villains), and battle they must. The villains are never all that complex; in most cases they just want to control the world or destroy it, other times they are just good old fashioned nut jobs.

The Avengers plot is not much better. If anything, the plots of X-Men and X2 are stronger. Oh, no! Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), wants to bring the world to its knees with an alien army! Who can save the world? The Avengers! So, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) rallies his team of misfits together...and the rest is history. Luckily for writer-director Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Dollhouse), several of The Avengers origins stories have already been theatrically released so no backstory is necessary for the superheroes. Even the two Avengers who were deemed not worthy of origins stories -- Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) -- only get a couple lines of expository dialogue to explain their pasts.

So with a half-assed plot, and no character development, Whedon, one of the true masters of witty, snarky, self-referential dialogue, plays to his strengths and saturates the script with smart ass dialogue. In turn, there is no point in The Avengers where the film takes itself seriously -- which is not such a bad thing. Working with superheroes like Thor, who protects the world with his giant hammer (to quote Captain Hammer from Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: “the hammer is my penis”), or Captain America (Chris Evans), who protects the world with a shield (okay, I admit it, I’m lacking a sexual metaphor for this guy), what is to be taken seriously? Then, there is Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) who is as cocksure as superheroes come and the not-so-jolly green giant with severe anger management issues, The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Essentially, Whedon uses The Avengers as a playground to allow the Avengers free reign to mock each other, and he does this in such a way to be humorous but not piss off loyal fans of the source material.

Speaking of fans, if you are a fan of Whedon’s television work, the Avengers are culled directly from the Whedonverse. Whedon has made a career of developing characters who must come to terms with their superhuman powers. Then they are matched up against other superhuman characters. Then Whedon lets them fight (physically or verbally) out their differences until they begrudgingly join forces in an apocalyptic battle against a seemingly undefeatable enemy. In most cases, there is a higher power who is revealed to be playing puppet master, controlling the fate of the world (usually unbeknown to the protagonists).

On a side note, there is a much stronger Whedon screenplay currently in multiplexes that is far more worthy of your attention: Cabin in the Woods. Unlike The Avengers’ watered-down plot (which we can probably chalk up to Disney keeping Whedon on a short leash), the narrative complexities of Cabin in the Woods’ plot reaches nearly inexplicable levels. Cabin in the Woods proves that genre filmmaking can push the intellectual limits of the audience, whereas The Avengers is just another Hollywood joyride.