Lucy (2014)

LUCY  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Luc Besson
    Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, 
    Min-Sik Choi, Amr Waked
Luc Besson seems to favor extreme makeovers in his female protagonists: Anne Parillaud in "La Femme Nikita", Milla Jovovich in "The Messenger", Scarlett Johansson in this. In Scarlett's case, the transformation is cerebral. She plays a student living in Taipei, who through some real bad luck (and a horrible choice in boyfriends) becomes a mule for a drug cartel. When the packet sewn into her abdomen breaks open before it can be removed, the drug hits her brain like a bullet, and her ability to process and use information increases exponentially. (It might be noted that whether she's working with 10 percent of her mind's capacity or 90, Scarlett's demeanor never changes. Her remoteness stays constant throughout.) Besson, meanwhile, uses the fantasy/action-movie premise to explore what a rapidly exploding I.Q. might look like, from inside and outside the subject's cranium. It might be more visual escape than cognitive science, but what he comes up with is vividly imagined and wonderfully strange. The Lucy from whom they say we all descend even makes an appearance.