"It is estimated most human beings only use 10 percent of the brain's capacity," Professor Norman [Morgan Freeman] tells a room full of attentive listeners at the beginning of the film "Lucy." "Imagine what would happen if we could access 100 percent?"
A botched drug deal and a medical fluke leave film's title character, Lucy [Scarlett Johansson], with a growing ability to do just that. The story follows her as she morphs into a living answer to Freeman's wondering: What does it look like for a person to use her brain to its full potential?
First, Lucy finds herself able to access and analyze the depths of her memory with stunning clarity. She sees the blue eyes and crooked tail of the Siamese cat she played with as an infant. Recalls the grinding feel of her bones growing as a teenager. Feels her metabolism shifting with age. And after sifting through knowledge and memory of herself, she begins to control first herself, then other people around her, then everything else around her. As she nears full brain capacity, she stops bullets with a flick of her finger, rearranges matter and energy at will, travels through time to watch the universe come into being and the first flicker of life appear. She's playing God, seeking immortality. And as the film plays out, Lucy becomes a living version of the oldest lie there is. Satan tempted Eve in the Garden with nothing less: "You will not surely die... and you will be like God." [Genesis 3:4-5]
"Lucy" is sprinkled with questions that have gripped people through the ages: What are we here for? Where did we come from? What is life about? "Life was given to us a billion years ago," Lucy says. "And what have we done with it?"
How interesting to see how director Luc Besson answers these questions in his film.
A botched drug deal and a medical fluke leave film's title character, Lucy [Scarlett Johansson], with a growing ability to do just that. The story follows her as she morphs into a living answer to Freeman's wondering: What does it look like for a person to use her brain to its full potential?
First, Lucy finds herself able to access and analyze the depths of her memory with stunning clarity. She sees the blue eyes and crooked tail of the Siamese cat she played with as an infant. Recalls the grinding feel of her bones growing as a teenager. Feels her metabolism shifting with age. And after sifting through knowledge and memory of herself, she begins to control first herself, then other people around her, then everything else around her. As she nears full brain capacity, she stops bullets with a flick of her finger, rearranges matter and energy at will, travels through time to watch the universe come into being and the first flicker of life appear. She's playing God, seeking immortality. And as the film plays out, Lucy becomes a living version of the oldest lie there is. Satan tempted Eve in the Garden with nothing less: "You will not surely die... and you will be like God." [Genesis 3:4-5]
"Lucy" is sprinkled with questions that have gripped people through the ages: What are we here for? Where did we come from? What is life about? "Life was given to us a billion years ago," Lucy says. "And what have we done with it?"
How interesting to see how director Luc Besson answers these questions in his film.