Lucy - New Luc Besson Film

DVD-Lots

Scarlett Johannson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVt32qoyhi0

Or Limitless 2 : B1tches be Crazy Yo!

Sam Mac

I'm always up for a bit of Besson! bring it on!

Adamantium

Looking oddly like she did in Lost In Translation. LIT ScarJo is best ScarJo

bnt

New International trailer: slightly spoilerish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zogp645sQ68

JP Liz V1

Salt + Limitless + Crank = Lucy

cloud493

This is out tomorrow :pac:

candy-gal1

The trailer looks amazing imho, going to see this tomorrow so really looking forward to it!

Bipolar Joe

Gonna go see this next week, looking forward to it. I love a lot of his films, The Professional is an all time favourite. This looks like it could be a great film with a stupid premise.

Fysh

It looks like daft fun, and Donald Clarke's review in the IT has me optimistic that it will get on with actually entertaining me quickly enough to allow for full "ignore the godawful nonsense science being used to justify things" mode to kick in

(Having said that, I'm not paying £16+ a head to see it in IMAX - it'd want to be very good and have a bunch of solid recommendations from friends before I splash out for that...)

cloud493

Thats what a cineworld card is for :cool:

Anything from Beeson is generally good fun, he's one of those filmmakers who can write and shoot action better than anyone, his script for The Transporter is well worth grabbing as every single punch and kick is detailed in it, something that very few other writers would bother with.

Fysh

cloud493 wrote: »

Thats what a cineworld card is for :cool:

In my case, it's what a 2 for £12 Odeon voucher is for

Kylo Ren

The whole notion of it being based on the myth we only use 10% of our brain makes me wary. I'll wait for it on Netflix. It looks like Limitless with more action. That was a fairly forgettable movie.

cloud493

I liked it a lot so. Few points.

- seemed a wee bit short to me.
- Johansson is really good as the lead, but she's kind of, the only character with any significance almost, without giving anything anyway.
- Morgan Freemans character is almost irrelevant to the plot I felt.
- lot less action based than the trailers suggested, but thats not a bad thing.
- Make a damn solo Black Widow movie please.

candy-gal1

Saw this this afternoon, Amazing and Fantastic is what I thought anyway, and Scarlett J being her usual perfection lookswise self ;):)

The only flaw I would have is it being much shorter than I thought it would be, but other than that WOW!

Her change from the first 20 or so minutes and then throughout till the end was great and believeable, you could almost feel everything with her in it and she did a very good "blank face, who cares" look/attitude!

Will definitly go again, and maybe again, gets into your head and not at all forgettable imho

cloud493

I thought it was a wee bit short. Seems to run to the last leg, so to speak.

Fysh

I enjoyed this quite a bit. It reminded me a bit of Crank, in that it doesn't hang around or waste too much time on exposition, just kind of gets on with things. Besson gives us some nice demonstrations of style (I liked the cross-cutting between the main scene the wildlife scene in the opening sequence, for example) and some absolute bobbins "science" to justify what's going on - but it's fine, because unlike some films with a ludicrous premise, Lucy doesn't dwell on it - just sets up the excuse and gets on with things.

There's less action than the trailer might suggest, but it's well paced and fun. It's not long but the right length for the story being told.

Lot of people complaining about the short run time but I'd like to see more films, especially blockbusters embrace the shorter fun time. A film that can tell it's story in 90 minutes is far preferable to a bloated, over blown 120-180 minute blockbuster. While I've yet to see the most recent Transformers film, I have my doubts that it needed 3 hours to tell the story considering that past entries in the series had about an hours worth of story and then 90 minutes of pratfalls.

CrazySka

Saw this tonight,

Just thought the story was weak with no real substance or thought behind it, visually was very impressive, reminded me of the later matrix films though in that it expected you to just swallow concepts that were never explained at all..

But again visually, very nice to watch bad was glad they kept the run time short, think if it was another 20 mins late I would have left feeling like ore went on way too long.

Looper007

A decent watch but damn I wanted more kick ass action from Mr Besson and whoever made the trailer really oversold it. I wanted Taken with Scarlett Johansson, without kidnapped daughters and Eastern European sex smugglers :pac:. God some of it did drag, was the whole intercutting of Animals eating and screwing and waht the earth was like in the past needed to be fair every few seconds and the third act is complete waffle. I bet some of the actors were trying not to laugh when saying that dialogue. It felt more like some David Attenborough show on acid. Mr Besson, I expect better from the man that gave us masterpieces such as Leon and The Big Blue.

Anyway the good stuff, Scarlett Johansson is great for the first two thirds of this movie especially the first 20 minutes. She is proving a top notch action hero but for me she's a little under used in this. Morgan Freeman picks up a another big pay check but Choi Min Sik was a great baddie. The first 20 minutes

With Lucy been tricked into smuggling and everything in the hotel with Choi Min Sik and his gang is dark comedy at it's best

is the best in the film pity the film didn't get as nasty or darkly funnier after that. It's Besson cruise control really.

constitutionus

i thought it was great craic !



like noah a bit more arty in places than i was expecting, and it may get a bit too trippy at the end for some.

but as an old school Sci/fi fan i found an enormous amount to enjoy here. its certainly not your traditional shooter film.

dont know if itll be everyones cup of tea but it made a nice relief from the usual blockbusters , and at an hour and a half or so it zipped along nicely.

8/10 from me.

Player 2

I'm surprised by the reactions I'm reading here - perhaps I'm being too harsh on the film, but Lucy was one of the worst films I've seen in 2014.

I knew literally nothing about it as I sat down in the cinema last Friday; and for the first 20 minutes or so, my interest was piqued. Luc Besson, thumbs up, Scarlett Johannson, thumbs up...

Then ScarJo launched into some frankly awful amateur drama class attempts at terror (i.e. shaking as much as possible and opening her eyes as wide as they would go); which set the tone for her acting throughout the rest of the film. That blank expression attempt at correlating infinite intelligence and power with a lack of empathy / emotion was explored better in the likes of Dr. Manhattan's character in Watchmen, for example. Here I thought she came across as a crow looking into an empty bag of crisps.

Amongst the other offenders - Morgan Freeman. An excellent actor; and perhaps not directed well by Besson, but when someone in front of you is morphing their hands into claws and other magical items, surely it would evoke some sort of amazed / stunned reaction, rather than simply looking straight at Lucy and nodding along as she spoke?

Beyond that, I won't say much more for fear of nit-picking, or indeed, spoiling the plot for anyone, but suffice to say, I'm not really bothered about the effects the drug had on Lucy, the heavy-handed metaphors late on in the film, or the director's interpretation of the 10% of our brain myth, etc, etc.

I'm as guilty as anyone of enjoying a "leave your brain at the door" kind of film, but this one requested that I bring 10% of it with me - and that 10% was being used to roll my eyes every 5 minutes.

justback83

Player 2 wrote: »

I'm surprised by the reactions I'm reading here - perhaps I'm being too harsh on the film, but Lucy was one of the worst films I've seen in 2014.

I knew literally nothing about it as I sat down in the cinema last Friday; and for the first 20 minutes or so, my interest was piqued. Luc Besson, thumbs up, Scarlett Johannson, thumbs up...

Then ScarJo launched into some frankly awful amateur drama class attempts at terror (i.e. shaking as much as possible and opening her eyes as wide as they would go); which set the tone for her acting throughout the rest of the film. That blank expression attempt at correlating infinite intelligence and power with a lack of empathy / emotion was explored better in the likes of Dr. Manhattan's character in Watchmen, for example. Here I thought she came across as a crow looking into an empty bag of crisps.

Amongst the other offenders - Morgan Freeman. An excellent actor; and perhaps not directed well by Besson, but when someone in front of you is morphing their hands into claws and other magical items, surely it would evoke some sort of amazed / stunned reaction, rather than simply looking straight at Lucy and nodding along as she spoke?

Beyond that, I won't say much more for fear of nit-picking, or indeed, spoiling the plot for anyone, but suffice to say, I'm not really bothered about the effects the drug had on Lucy, the heavy-handed metaphors late on in the film, or the director's interpretation of the 10% of our brain myth, etc, etc.

I'm as guilty as anyone of enjoying a "leave your brain at the door" kind of film, but this one requested that I bring 10% of it with me - and that 10% was being used to roll my eyes every 5 minutes.

Same opinion! I'm so surprised with the reactions to this film. I found it to be completely ridiculous, in the top 3 worse I have ever seen! I must admit, I enjoyed the first 20 mins - after this it became a complete joke!

Roar

All I could think of at the end was Cartman as the trapper keeper

Frankie5Angels

Saw this yesterday evening. Must be up there with the worst films I've seen in the last 5 years anyway. As some have said, it's visually impressive but I just felt there was absolutely no point to it. Scarlett Johansen (sp?) was nice to look at, but other than that this one was instantly forgettable.

evil_seed

This movie completely lost me towards the end. It's entertaining but very bizarre.

ScarJo

takes the blue pill, becomes limitless and enters the matrix to become transcendent

is how I would some this up

Loughc

justback83 wrote: »

Same opinion! I'm so surprised with the reactions to this film. I found it to be completely ridiculous, in the top 3 worse I have ever seen! I must admit, I enjoyed the first 20 mins - after this it became a complete joke!

Same opinion as this! Awful film. I got free tickets for it and even for free I felt cheated.

Brian?

Blonde Akira?

paulieeye

Utter shcutter!

A pretentious attempt at trying to be thought provoking based on a completely bullsh!t premise that we only use 10% of our brain. The script was scribbled down by a 12 year old by the sounds of it..."at 50% we begin to control matter"...really? Using more of our brain allows us to control matter?? "How do you know this Mr Freeman?" ..."i have no idea...just guessing lolz""

One thing...I could of sworn she went back to paris before she met her friend in her house...didnt they show a city scape with the eiffel tower in the background just before she met her friend who likes the secytimes and gave her the vitamin advice(!) ?? Next scene shes back in japan china and then flies to paris again

cloud493

paulieeye wrote: »

Utter shcutter!

A pretentious attempt at trying to be thought provoking based on a completely bullsh!t premise that we only use 10% of our brain. The script was scribbled down by a 12 year old by the sounds of it..."at 50% we begin to control matter"...really? Using more of our brain allows us to control matter?? "How do you know this Mr Freeman?" ..."i have no idea...just guessing lolz""

One thing...I could of sworn she went back to paris before she met her friend in her house...didnt they show a city scape with the eiffel tower in the background just before she met her friend who likes the secytimes and gave her the vitamin advice(!) ?? Next scene shes back in japan and then flies to paris again

For a start, its china and not japan.

Devostator

Major Dallas, I first would like to salute a warrior, you are a shining example of this Army's might, in the name of the Federation and it's territory...
The Fifth Element > Lucy

e_e

I thought it was wonderful in its daft ambitiousness, my favorite action film of the Summer in fact. While so many films with big budgets play it totally safe this takes an absurd premise and runs with it completely. It's also a great antithesis to all of these 2 hour+ origin stories that are all promise but delivery nothing. This is a film that is near constantly shifting its ideas and tones doing so in the most deliriously confident way. I kinda loved it and (contrary to the above group of posts) am a little bemused by the somewhat mixed responses its been getting. Besides you've got to admire something that mixes such disparate elements from the likes Leon, Transcendence and The Tree of Life.

cloud493

I've seen it a couple times now, and I still dig it. Its not the best movie of the summer, and maybe it coulda done with a little more stuff in it, but a lot better than some of the other slop we've endured over the summer, and a good movie in its own right./

razorblunt

Awful, one of the worst big budget movies I've seen in some time.

Sam Mac

Besson did a good job on Lucy. Really enjoyed this film! Very original and kept me interested and entertained throughout.

ancapailldorcha

e_e wrote: »

I thought it was wonderful in its daft ambitiousness, my favorite action film of the Summer in fact. While so many films with big budgets play it totally safe this takes an absurd premise and runs with it completely. It's also a great antithesis to all of these 2 hour+ origin stories that are all promise but delivery nothing. This is a film that is near constantly shifting its ideas and tones doing so in the most deliriously confident way. I kinda loved it and (contrary to the above group of posts) am a little bemused by the somewhat mixed responses its been getting. Besides you've got to admire something that mixes such disparate elements from the likes Leon, Transcendence and The Tree of Life.

I'm on the fence about going to see this. Might take your recommendation.

NinjaTruncs

cloud493 wrote: »

For a start, its china and not japan.

It's actually Taiwan.

Mickeroo

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I'm on the fence about going to see this. Might take your recommendation.

I went last night, and it's definitely worth giving a go. Once you get past the ludicrous premise it's pretty enjoyable and has to be commended for being pretty ambitious too. e_e's name dropping of the Tree of Life is spot on though a bit of subtlety wouldn't have gone amiss on Besson's part. Freeman's character is pretty much there to hit the audience over the head with the philosophical stuff just in case the visuals flew over anyone's head imo. Probably unfair to criticise a film like this for lacking subtlety though.

Oh and there's also a pretty great car chase in the middle of it

e_e

I could imagine Besson watching some Malick and thinking "This is nice, but how could I put it an action movie context? Needs more shootouts and car chases."

ancapailldorcha

Mickeroo wrote: »

Oh and there's also a pretty great car chase in the middle of it

I'm a sucker for great car chases.

TiGeR KiNgS

Good/Bizarre concise movie, would recommend.

Reminded me a bit of 'Run Lola Run' but not nearly as good.

Burky126

Are people here really not familiar with Luc Besson?

I really dug this of all the summer blockbusters I've seen this year. Got exactly what I expected really. It's stupid, the pacing is a little off but it's style and subject matter were a change from the typical Hollywood nonsense. The running time was also great, never felt like it overstayed it's welcome. It ended when it needed to. Not the best of Besson's efforts but definitely a Besson film.

If you like Leon, this may be for you.

Fysh

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I'm on the fence about going to see this. Might take your recommendation.

Did you like Crank or Crank 2? That's the easiest comparison I can think of, personally.

The story isn't particularly deep, the science is utter twaddle (but the script pretty much acknowledges this, with Freeman's character all but saying "I think we all know I'm making this sh*t up"), and there's not a great deal of characterisation going on. But it's an excuse for just going full-tilt into the high concept. It's not as action-packed as Crank (despite what the trailer suggests) but it's a lot of fun if you accept it on its terms, and it doesn't hang around long enough to wear the premise thin.

Don't watch it if you want a nuanced story, deep character work, or solid speculative fiction. If you want inventively daft fun made by a director who doesn't just throw shakycam at his actiom scenes, give it a try.

ancapailldorcha

Fysh wrote: »

Did you like Crank or Crank 2? That's the easiest comparison I can think of, personally.

The story isn't particularly deep, the science is utter twaddle (but the script pretty much acknowledges this, with Freeman's character all but saying "I think we all know I'm making this sh*t up"), and there's not a great deal of characterisation going on. But it's an excuse for just going full-tilt into the high concept. It's not as action-packed as Crank (despite what the trailer suggests) but it's a lot of fun if you accept it on its terms, and it doesn't hang around long enough to wear the premise thin.

Don't watch it if you want a nuanced story, deep character work, or solid speculative fiction. If you want inventively daft fun made by a director who doesn't just throw shakycam at his actiom scenes, give it a try.

My interest was originally twigged when I saw Luc Besson's name on the trailer along with young Scarlett as the lead which makes a nice change from the usual white guy/Will Smith. Crank was hilariously awful but a lot of fun. I've not seen Crank 2. Any good?

Mickeroo

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

My interest was originally twigged when I saw Luc Besson's name on the trailer along with young Scarlett as the lead which makes a nice change from the usual white guy/Will Smith. Crank was hilariously awful but a lot of fun. I've not seen Crank 2. Any good?

Crank 2 is more of the same, both Crank 1 & 2 are just so crazy it's very hard not to enjoy them.

Thargor

razorblunt wrote: »

Awful, one of the worst big budget movies I've seen in some time.

I have to agree with this, the faux-philosophy science bull was cringe inducing, complete and utter fluff and really patronizing and painful to listen to and it went on forever at the start, all his speeches were excruciating but one Morgan Freeman quote I remember for how bad it was: "With one neuron you have life, with two neurons you have movement, and when a cell has movement thats when it gets really interesting" :eek:. Then it cuts to low quality stock footage of cheetahs and alligators and other generic wildlife shots again...

The use of stock footage was incredible in its awfulness, it was a bad joke, Morgan Freeman was talking about all humanity had achieved and they're flashing up Russian Cossack dancing and clips of Bollywood? Scarlett Johansson suspects something is a trap so they flash up ancient looking 4:3 ratio footage of a mouse sniffing around a mousetrap? It was the most amateur hour Jobsbridge crap Ive ever seen in a big budget film, I just could not believe what I was seeing at some points.

Then they wasted 15 minutes on Winamp screensavers towards the end, for a part of the film where any other director would have been showing shots of the interactions between atoms or electrical charges between neurons etc, that kind of thing like the Simpsons gif below, except in this film they're so utterly clueless about any basic science that they're showing slowmotion shots of paint falling into clear water and other generic bull that had nothing to do with anything, people behind me were asking WTF was going on:



And of course they just couldn't make a film about a strong female character and leave it at that, they had to include one of the most laughably shoe-horned in love interests of all time for her, at least they didn't waste too much time on it.

And worst of all it was just completely forgettable, I usually spend the journey home going over a film in my head but here it was just a mild sense of regret that they'd tricked me out of a tenner with a good trailer. 2/10 from me.

johnny_ultimate

I really enjoyed the first twenty minutes and the last twenty minutes. It's the fifty minutes or so in the middle that lost me. More than anything, I would have loved Besson to have come up with more novel ways of presenting his action scenes, considering how vast the potential was. Since scientific fact is effectively giddily abandoned here, I'd have loved to see some more elaborate setpieces - cross-continental telepathy battles or something. A lot of the actual action seemed like little more than Matrix knock-offs without much visual punch to them, especially given how weird and intense Lucy's initial transformation sequence. There's definitely more potential than a car chase in this concept.

Nonetheless, it was endearingly mental and idiosyncratic overall. The opening act was delightfully cartoonish - a bare minimum of exposition and explanation in favour of pulpy thrills (Choi Min-Sik makes for one hell of a one-dimensionally nasty mob boss). The cross-cutting between nature documentary footage was absurd, nonsensical but again surprisingly entertaining. And then the final stretch in the laboratory felt like the wacky, ludicrous visualisation of the concept that was lacking elsewhere. A vivid cluster**** of Akira, Tree of Life, 2001 and (more positively this time) The Matrix. I don't think it achieves the thematic transcendence some of its fans have articulated, but it is surprisingly refreshing to see a genre piece say '**** it' and opt to go completely and utterly insane. If nothing else, it's the kind of oddball spectacle I very rarely get to see in Savoy 1, so that definitely counts for something.

Agricola

Enjoyed the first 20 minutes too. Really attention grabbing, gets you to put down your popcorn and tune into it. But it went downhill from there. It's like it didnt know whether to be a high concept sci-fi or a run of the mill action film. Given what had happened to her and the fact THE Morgan Freeman wanted to study her new superpowers, the whole idea of the film spending so much time on this Yakuza guy sending his henchmen to kill her seemed trivial.

wp_rathead

very frustrating film

Only bit I liked was with

the dinosaur

And that is cause I love

dinosaurs

Found myself feeling uncomfortable with the dialogue trying to be so clever and failing miserably..

3/10 (some of the visuals were cool)

Last four films I saw in cinema were Guardians of Galaxy, Boyhood, Xmen First Class and Dawn of Planet of Apes. I was due a bad one I guess

ancapailldorcha

I saw this on Monday and I just couldn't get into. Even though I was expecting a completely senseless premise, I still didn't enjoy it. There's far too much time wasted on exposition and on the 10% brain myth in contrast with the streamlined Crank whereby all the exposition is dealt with right at the start. The "plot" is ultimately so dull and nonsensical that constantly shoving it in the viewer's face completely kills off any sense of fun the various idiosyncrasies might have achieved in creating. There are some nice shots and the various cutouts are laughably reminiscent of something Seth MacFarlane might attempt.

MrStuffins

I enjoyed the first 20 minutes and I thuoght "this could be good", but, alas, it wasn't to be. It was honestly one of the worst movies i've ever had the misfortune to have paid to see! Obviously the premise is silly but I was willing to ignore that or a silly action flick.

Johansson was awful! The dialogue was terrible. Morgan Freeman phoned it in as he often does when there's a paycheck on the line. About 35 minutes in, this movie felt like torture. We were treated to a boring and puke inducing scene where Johansson decided to ring her mother and go on for 5 minutes about how she could remember petting her dog as a 1 year old and how she could remember the taste of her mother's breast-milk.

But it got so so much worse! She then

stabs the mob boss in the hands

and decides to go off on a philosophical tirade aimed at, what I can only assume is, people in the background since in the whole scene she never once made eye contact with

Min-Sik Choi

and seemed to be looking around the room like a brain damaged budgie.

But the worst of all was in the lab scene at the end.

When all of the funky black stuff starts to emanate from our hero, one of the scientists says "what is she doing?". Freeman replies "She's generating energy from matter". Worse still, when she starts to shape the stuff into, God knows what, there is another little exchange where the scientist asks what she is creating and Freeman replies "some sort of Super-Computer I should think". HOW THE HELL DOES HE KNOW ALL OF THIS?

And then when it's all said and done

all of her information is neatly handed to Freeman in a USB Stick?

How stupid does Luc Besson think we are? Very! Avoid this movie at all costs.