I went into Lucy knowing that Luc Besson, though a great director, has a rather stylized view of women/young girls. He loves representing the dichotomy between physical helplessness and a surrealistic, primal power over men as signified by their beauty. Before going into Lucy, I imagined it as a sort of reboot to River in Firefly and hoped for the best. Lucy did have awesome moments and initially had excellent, tight pacing, but I think that pairing the story with stereotypical scientist/academics as exposition puppets and junk science poseurs to guide the audience to the philosophical theory behind his action film initially helped with the pacing, but eventually became absurd, ridiculous and distracting.

WARNING SPOILERS

The most powerful person in the world, who happens to be a woman, still has to go to a group of men in white coats for guidance and assistance as they basically stare at her dumbfounded. Um, I don’t think so. Then they go, “Sure, let’s give you more of this blue drug,” without any ethical hesitations or discussion. Why does she even need their assistance? I know that she wants to pass on her knowledge of all the secrets of the universe, but again, these are the guys that should get it!?! So she essentially has a gigantic menstruation cycle which then engulfs all the energy/technology around her (vagina dentata) to produce a flash drive and transcend her temporary and physical bounds to occupy all time and space. “I’m everywhere.” Shouldn’t she say, “I am?” Because she isn’t just everywhere, she is every when and every what (I am referring to her ability to manipulate and transform matter). Her cells have chosen immortality. I hate it when people pull a Prometheus. If you want your character to be God but fear cries of blasphemy, then don’t do it otherwise let your character be God. Don’t get diplomatic and cryptic. Just do it. If you’re going to become God, a flash drive isn’t going to do it as the source of knowledge. In 5 years, it will be like a floppy disk and seem dated in future viewings. I think that Besson tried to be David Cronenberg, but just ended up taking the least successful components of the Wachowski Brothers’ Matrix sequels meets 2001. I don’t really think that Besson knew what he wanted his god to look like.
Lucy is an extremely short movie that still feels like scenes were left on the cutting room floor thus causing some plot holes and the transformation from human to god was not properly paced to extend throughout the movie. He climaxed too quickly and should have let Lucy gradually become powerful because there isn’t much that you can do as the movie continues long after your character has visually reached her zenith. Also I hate to nitpick, but since the gangsters didn’t mind blatantly storming a university in the daytime (and maybe they should have used a more subtle approach because normally how good would security be at a university if one angry teenager with an AK47 can knock one out of commission for 24 hours) or more, they probably could have figured out a better way to distribute the drug. Also if you were suddenly a genius, would you really start shooting people and causing epic car crashes and draw more attention to yourself when it isn’t always necessary?
It was a real waste of Scarlett Johansson, who did a terrific job. Johansson showed more emotion in Her as the voice of an artificially intelligent form of life, but as the poster girl for transhumanism, she is forced to speak in a monotone and move like a cyborg, which I didn’t equate with being God. Perhaps I am prejudiced by Firefly’s River and Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Q, but I thought that it would overwhelm her with more emotion to be able to feel everything and everyone, and she would exhibit more joy and triumph at creating and destroying at will. I’m glad that I gave my money at the box office so I can get more movies with women kicking butt, but unfortunately, Lucy fell short.