Lucy **** (2014, Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Min-sik Choi) – Movie Review

Game for anything, Scarlett Johansson is perfect as Lucy, an American in Taiwan whose new lover tricks her into delivering a mysterious briefcase to the terrifying gang boss Mr Jang (Min-sik Choi), who seizes her and turns her into a drugs mule for a new and powerful synthetic drug.

The bag full of the drug that’s now inside her stomach leaks, unlocking her mind’s full potential. The average person uses only 10 per cent of their brain capacity but Lucy’s now got 100 per cent to play with.

Freeman is also ideal as Professor Norman, the leading authority on the human mind, who helps her with her new-found powers. And Amr Waked’s well cast too as Paris police captain Pierre Del Rio who helps Lucy, now a super-powered merciless warrior, avenge herself on the villains.

Writer-director Luc Besson’s stylish, zesty, likeable futuristic thriller movie is attractively bonkers and a very considerable success. There’s plenty of suspense, tension and action thrills throughout, all packed into a highly compact 90 minutes, so there’s no flab or time-wasting. Fast and furious, it’s gripping, infectious great fun.

It proved a smash hit, which was no surprise as it exactly hits the spot. There were calls for a sequel, but Luc Besson said in 2014: ‘I don’t see how we can do it. It’s not made for that.’ But on June 26 2015, Besson’s  production house EuropaCorp announced its slate of new films, with Lucy 2 ‘in development’.

On 2 September 2017, it was confirmed that Besson is working on the script for Lucy 2, with EuropaCorp confirming the sequel is officially moving forward following the massive box office bomb of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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