Movie Review: Lucy (2014)

Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is twenty five and lives in Taipei as a student. Her new boyfriend asks her to deliver a case to a Mr. Jang (Choi Min-Sik), and she refuses multiple times, but he cuffs the case to her arm and she is forced to enter the hotel and deliver the package.

Her boyfriend is shot before her eyes and Mr. Jang’s henchmen drags her to a suite, where she is forced to open the case. The case contains a new synthetic drug CPH4, and before she knows it, the drug is implanted in Lucy’s abdomen, and she must deliver within 24 hours or die when the plastic bag inside her disintegrates. Lucy is kept captive while waiting for the flight, but one of her captors kicks her and the bag breaks, opening it and pushing all those drugs into her system.

The effects are remarkable; something Professor Samuel Norman (Morgan Freeman) has hypothesised about but never had a hope to witness. Lucy contacts him and tells him what is happening to her and agrees to meet with him in twelve hours.

Lucy: We’ve codified our existence to bring it down to human size, to make it comprehensible, we’ve created a scale so we can forget its unfathomable scale

Meanwhile, there are still men with CPH4 in their bellies on the way to different countries. Lucy contacts Police Captain Pierre Del Rio (Amr Waked) in France to tell him what is happening, and he is convinced to take action. All three men are taken by the police and rushed to hospital, but the Taiwanese drug cartel takes also arrives to take the drug. Chaos ensues, but Lucy is able to get all three packets of CPH4 from the now dead drug mules.

As Lucy’s access to her brain capacity increases, she becomes telekinetic and able to manipulate people and matter. With these mind-blowing powers comes the knowledge that her body cannot bear the drugs infinitely and that she isn’t infinitely strong enough to survive all the mental capacity she is now subjected to. As she races to Professor Norman, Mr. Jang is still on his pursuit to get his drugs back. Can Lucy share her knowledge before her face off with Jang or her meeting with her own death?

Rating: 8/10

I saw this movie over this weekend thinking that we were actually going to watch Sex-tape because some of my friends claimed they were too scared to watch Lucy. I am so happy that I got to see this instead because yet another Jason Segal and Cameron Diaz movie is not at the top of my to-do list.

Lucy is a movie that is actually worth the hype. I get why people would want to see it. Gripping story plus good action usually wields excellent results.

I really enjoyed Scarlett Johansson, and Analeigh Tipton wasn’t enough on screen to irritate me. The story had an excellent pace and I really thought that even though the hypothesis was far-fetched, the story did what it could to remain believable. As Michael said in this blog post, we need more female leads in action movies that don’t constantly send out sexual innuendos and need a man to save her. Lucy did everything herself, she kicked ass, her tale didn’t revolve how tight her clothes was (ahem, Black Widow, Scarlett) and the men ended up awed by her powers.

Thoughts while watching:

Firstly, don’t trust the Taiwanese. I did not spot any Taiwanese in Lucy that had a smidgen of dignity.

Can Morgan Freeman please, please do the voice over for my life?

I need Lucy’s super skills for traffic every Monday morning.

Don’t date guys you meet in a drunken adventure in a club at night, and more importantly, leave the first time when he asks you to do something questionable outside a high powered hotel.

Spanish/French/Whatever cops with crooked noses are surprisingly hot. Maybe it is the accent?

Even though there are some questionable scientific discoveries, I really had fun watching this. Morgan Freeman looks and sounds like the highly qualified professor that he portrays, and then the man dumbstruck with the fact that what he has hypothesised has happened.

Reasons why I really liked it:

Female kicks ass – there are not nearly enough action movies, or any genre of movies for that sake, that hosts a female lead who seriously kicks everybody’s ass, finds a way to save herself and not need a man to do it.

Oh, science. I enjoyed Morgan Freeman as the Professor and I just enjoy movies where science is celebrated and explored.

Good acting, lady. My usual range of comments about Scarlett Johansson is not always flattering, but she deserves accolades for Lucy. I thought she coped exceptionally well with having an unimaginable amount of life threatening drugs in her system. SJ was a superhero at the end of the day, and I didn’t even feel sorry for anyone she took out of her way – they truly deserved that.

Good recipe of drugs, drama, action and sadness. What do you do when you realise that you have unimaginable knowledge for a short time and then you will die? You contact the leading academic in the field, lure the madman out who is responsible for your upcoming death, give the police of France a day they will never forget and kick serious but. I wasn’t bored even once, I didn’t wonder when it would end and the action scenes weren’t boringly drawn out till I wanted to cry.

Recommendation: You won’t be ruining your day by watching this, but if you are scared easily I won’t recommend it. Go give it a try!

September 16, 2014September 15, 2014 by Natasha Categories: Movies, ReviewsTags: action, Amr Waked, Analeigh Tipton, Choi Min-Sik, CPH4, Lucy, Morgan Freeman, Movies, Pierre Del Rio, Professor Samuel Norman, Reviews, Scarlett Johansson, Sci-Fi 9 Comments

Warm Bodies (2013)

What am I doing with my life? I’m so pale. I should get out more. I should eat better. My posture is terrible. I should stand up straighter. People would respect me more if I stood up straighter. What’s wrong with me? I just want to connect. Why can’t I connect with people? Oh, right, it’s because I’m dead. I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. I mean, we’re all dead. This girl is dead. That guy is dead. That guy in the corner is definitely dead. Jesus these guys look awful.

R is a Zombie. He can’t remember what his name used to be, or how he got to be a Zombie, what disease might have caused it, but now he spends his day walking around in a catatonic state, staring at his fellow zombies. His best friend is M (Rob Corddry), another Zombie. They occasionally grunt and speaking a word (literally, one word). R feels that he is different from the other zombies. They are completely lifeless but R is still processing his surroundings, collecting things, and constantly thinking. There are other zombies as well, who’ve progressed further into the monstrous state and they are called Bonies, because they all peeled their skin off eventually. They are horrible and dangerous and much crueller than the other zombies.

M asks R if he wants food, and they and another bunch of zombies head out to hunt humans. They find a group of humans, led by Perry Kelvin (Dave Franco), who is outside the protective walls to find medicine for the remaining humans. A fight ensues, and R kills Perry and eats his brain. He glimpses into Perry’s life, and sees his relationship with Julie (Teresa Palmer), who is still fighting the zombies. He saves Julie’s life by making her smell like a Zombie and takes her to where he lives.

Julie is frightened and wants to go home, but is fascinated by R and how different he is from her perception of zombies.

Eventually R takes her home because her safety becomes a major concern. On the way, he tells Julie that he killed Perry and she disappears without him.

M finds R and it is clear that he and some of the other zombies have also starting healing. M tells R that the Bonies are mad that a change is happening and are planning to attack the human enclosure. R decides to go warn Julie, despite the danger.

Will R be able to warn Julie? Will she believe him? What will her father do when he finds out what his daughter has been up to? Can the Bonies be defeated?

Rating: 7/10

This was such a cute, fun movie that I enjoyed unexpectedly. I thought I would dislike it – the story sounds so corny and I was rolling my eyes when I heard that Hollywood was producing a zombie love story. I mean, honestly? I kept on postponing watching this even though I had heard decent things about it. Warm Bodies succeeded in impressing me – the acting was well done and the progression of how everything went down came along nicely.

I actually enjoyed the presence of Analeigh Tipton, something I never enjoy (she has such an annoying face). Nicholas Hoult should get more roles – not only is he gorgeous he can act as well. Same goes for Dave Franco – his older brother is so annoying but this beautiful man is definitely not. I thought Teresa Palmer was a good choice to play Julie. Julie was a good character and she was admirable and a real fighter. She showed that kindness could be given to something you don’t understand and that if someone’s atrocities shouldn’t be a damning conviction on the rest of the species. I do admire her – not many girls can cope with loving a man who ate your previous boyfriend’s brain.

The theory of healing Zombies was ridiculous, and the zombies not very scary (although the Bonies were), the movie was fun because it didn’t take itself so seriously.

Recommended as some light hearted movie watching. Bestie, I think even you would like this! I can see myself watching this again at some point, and that itself is a rarity these days. Go try it out!

August 11, 2014 by Natasha Categories: Movies, ReviewsTags: Analeigh Tipton, Dave Franco, Julie, M, Movies, Nicholas Hoult, Nora, Perry Kelvin, R, Reviews, Rob Corddry, Teresa Palmer, Warm Bodies, Wordpress, zombies 11 Comments