Lucy
"All this knowledge, Lucy. I'm not even sure that mankind is ready for it. We're so driven by power and profit. Given Man's nature, it might bring us only instability and chaos."
This was fun. A classic action-packed movie with big elaborate explosions and gun fights. A classic plot of synthetic drugs being forcefully inserted into Lucy's intestines, granted her access to previously inaccessible parts of her cognition, and Morgan Freeman being a professor on evolution and the brain? Sign me up!
It's hard to try and take any form of narrative seriously when the entire plot is basically Scarlet Johansson gradually becoming more and more powerful and knowledgeable, while a Korean mafia gang hunt her down and Norman (Morgan Freeman) successfully convinces her to do the right thing and share the knowledge with mankind. That's the entire plot, it's basic, but it's fun.
What elevates this into 3 and a half is definitely the messages they explore throughout. The plot is really the b-plot, and what I felt was more of the film's intention was to get you to question certain philosophical stuff such as the accumulation of greed and corruption across humanity, the conundrum of too much knowledge on one's psyche and whether or not such knowledge is even worth discovering, when many people would rather seek material wealth or pleasures. Then perhaps my favourite premise that they didn't fully explore which does drag it down, is the concept of Lucy keeping Pierre Del Rio (played by Amr Waked) around simply to remember what companionship feels like.
This had so much good potential for a good narrative, considering they start it with Pierre quite validly asking Lucy why she's even bothering to drag him along when she can handle herself clearly (Pierre had just witnessed her defeat a whole crew of Korean mobsters by literally freezing them in mid-air). She responds by kissing him, and saying he's there so she remembers. THIS IS A COOL CONCEPT! As Lucy's humanity begins to dwindle due to her expansive cognitive abilities meaning she no longer feels emotions, the fact she keeps Pierre around to try and emulate that would've made the character of Lucy actually really upsetting and sympathetic for us. While it's fun and cool to watch her effortlessly kick ass, it would've been so much cooler if they continued down the narrative of her not wanting to lose her emotions and humanity through her and Pierre's relationship which they unfortunately did not.
With this major critique out of the way, the movie still stands as a fun watch which will go by extremely fast, as it did for me.