Scarlett Johansson's character ingests designer drugs that enable her to use 100% of her brain in Luc Besson's latest picture, which boasts a neat premise even if it isn't scientifically accurate. But do the critics like it? Mostly, with a 62% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Here's what they're saying:
- According to Andrew O'Hehir at Salon, Lucy is "2001: A Space Odyssey remade as a Eurotrash action film," which, in fact, "will make you dumber than you were already." If one thing can be said of Besson, though, it's that "he understands the virtue of forward momentum," O'Hehir writes. "Does it make sense? Not at all. Is it boring? Not that either."
- As for Mick LaSalle at the San Fransisco Chronicle, the flick "is crazy, but in the best way." Besson "never slows down, never falls in love with sequences at the expense of story, keeps his running times down and always remembers that it's all about emotion." Meanwhile, "Johansson deserves some kind of credit for somehow not looking ridiculous."
- Besson delivers "a brazenly mindless thriller" that "achieves new levels of absurdity," writes Elizabeth Weitzman at the New York Daily News. It's not bad as "bombastic summer entertainment," but Besson "is so limited in his vision," that Lucy "resembles a gorgeous robot more than a fascinatingly evolved human being."
- At the Detroit News, Tom Long writes that the flick is "completely nuts," while Besson has "gone pretty much full schizo." Still, "Lucy has something to frustrate everyone, but just enough chutzpah to delight a demented few." At the same time, "it does raise all sorts of questions you rarely find in a shoot-out flick."
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