Lucy (Brockway)

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

Lucy

As if in continuation of her darkling domme persona, superstar Scarlett Johansson stars as "Lucy," a serio-comic heroine tale by Luc Besson, with more Pop in its bop that plays (in saving grace) jangly and loose with its free associative, wild detail.

Here she comes...again, as a spaced out and bewildered Scarlett-in-Wonderland as an unwilling drug mule carrying some supercharged blue powder in her abdomen. The drug is CPH4, synthetically made from a mother's birth hormone that contains extra sensory abilities and then some with a turbo boost to the brain .

Johansson as Lucy, is beaten chained and raped. The drug is sewn into her abdomen by the sadistic Mr. Jang (Choi Min-sik). As she is violently kicked in the stomach, the powder is leaked into her bloodstream and she begins to exhibit the kind of blank, poker faced manner we saw in "Under the Skin" laced with a hint of Sil, the alien from "Species" and, last but not least, she can suddenly crawl on the ceiling as skillfully as one young Linda Blair. Lucy shoots her generic captors with an arsenal of guns and manages to icily stare her way into a hospital. For some odd reason, she shoots a poor soul on the operating table and has the surgeon remove the rest of the Hollywood blue packets from her blonde belly. It is implied that the drug has limitless potential with the power to rule the world as we know it, or rather, don't know it.

Lucy gets her way (of course) and escapes, all the while achieving paranormal supremacy by leaps and bounds.

Not one bit of this makes much sense, but it is so slickly put together that it makes a fun and corny popcorn film, that will make gazpacho out of your good sense.

Lucy gets revenge on the nasty Mr Jang by stabbing him, horribly, gorily and graphically in both hands, nailing him to a chair, just at the moment when he wakes from a cucumber-eyed massage

Ouch!

About half of "Lucy" is occupied by the chasing and running from baddies with a plainly handsome police investigator in tow, one Pierre Del Rio (Amr Waked)  as an apparent "memory" or drone, which isn't as interesting since it quotes from former Besson films "Leon: The Professional ", "Nikita" and "Transporter".

Still, there are some vivid moments in the film where a montage reaches a poetic impact, such as the opening scene where Lucy, sheathed in animal print is juxtaposed with the eyes of a leopard, or when in Paris, she abruptly manipulates  Time and Space like a screen sweep from the iPad of her consciousness.

Humorous it is, too, to watch Lucy respond to awestruck humans as if to say, "so what?"

While the pursuit of some predictable men and suits is ho hum,    a little sarcasm in Scarlett makes the goings on ha-ha. It is a hoot to watch macho Asian men tie themselves in spastic knots as they rise in emasculation to the ceiling, useless puffs of testosterone, constructing poor shadow-plays in male origami.

Morgan Freeman appears as a professor duly attempting the expected Voice of Reason.

And while it makes short work of nonsense that Lucy turns herself into a mass of licorice and blood with the power to propel herself to prehistoric time, there is something in Luc Besson's flow of jujube amphetamine imagery that makes it all a thrill. Indeed, the film's final seconds have a definite "Twilight Zone" feel.

And, Morgan Freeman's silent look says it all: men's endeavors mean nothing compared to some universal estrogen unleashed.

Write Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com