Luc Besson’s “Lucy” Languishes

lucyLuc Besson’s Lucy (C-) has momentum and drive and a super-cool premise; it just doesn’t really know where to start or end. The film theorizes that if people could harness one hundred percent of the potential that lies in the human brain, they would be omniscient, omnipresent and a little nuts. As the titular character, Scarlett Johansson has to singlehandedly carry a lot of the film’s far-fetched notions on her slim shoulders as she’s made an unwitting drug mule for a substance that allows the mind to be used to full capacity. Her backstory is uninvolving, and her quest is never really properly revealed. She’s seemingly on a race against time to beat Besson’s incessant title cards that keep showing the percentage of her brain that are now in full effect. Stock mobster characters and a ponderous Morgan Freeman as a university scientist studying this very phenomenon seem to be the most obligatory of elements in the film. Some of the action and effects are pretty nifty; some are even mildly mind-blowing. But with the brain all revved up with no place to go, it’s a pretty spectacular letdown to find the film isn’t half as smart as it thinks it is. 60%?