Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Min-sik Choi, Amr Waked, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Pilou Asbæk, Analeigh Tipton, Nicholas Phongpheth, Jan Oliver Schroeder, Luca Angeletti, Loïc Brabant, Pierre Grammont, Bertrand Quoniam, Pascal Loison.

Scarlett Johansson seems to be everywhere you look during the last couple of years. Not only is that a testament to the actor’s work, productivity and sheer enjoyment for cinema goers but it stands in good stead for the fact that in her latest cinematic release, Lucy, she really is everywhere. In a film which for the most part plays fast and loose with the cinema fan’s intelligence, Ms. Johansson, along with the ever reliable Morgan Freeman, the wonderful find of Amr Waked and Min-sik Choi, gives a performance that at least makes her stand out amongst the backdrop of instability and sometimes utterly ridiculous story line.

If you need an actor that can do almost any role placed in her direction then Scarlett Johansson really is the best female actor to ask. In a world that praises and acclaims, often unbelievably off the scale in terms of action film stars, its male contingent, it really never seems to do the same with its female stars, if they do it is always with one eye on the notion of acceptability, of beauty being the powerful drive. What Scarlett Johansson manages to do, not just in Lucy, but across the board is show that women can play these tough and robust roles whilst not being filmed highlighting her very obvious beauty. The camera, the director, catches her doing what comes naturally with no extra adjustments and that is being an actor of incredible repute.

Part hard hitting, flawed in fragments but a film in which was impossible to tear the eyes away from, Lucy, takes the unsound premise that a human being only uses 10 per cent of their potential brain power and therefore will always be stuck in a world in which evolution might actually outstrip them. Yet despite the defective reasoning behind the film, what occurs on screen is actually not that bad, take the premise away, turn it into a film which revolves around the protagonist and the drugs trafficking trade and it is a winner, it’s just that the cinema goer doesn’t need more than 10 per cent of anything to see the film for what it is.

Scarlett Johansson gives a fantastic performance, almost other worldly, curious and omnipotent God like in its approach and in parts the same tremendous quality she bought to the film Under The Skin, as the eponymous Lucy, her reaction to certain situations is impressive and to go from the emotionally charged to the emotionally unruffled as she sees the truth in all moments of Time was a skill many find elusive. Alongside the super Amr Waked as the French Detective Pierre Del Rio and Morgan Freeman who can make the reading of the instructions of how to cook stewed carrots seem the most passionate act known to humanity, Lucy is well worth a watch, you will certainly focus on the film completely, but if there is another film in which to immerse yourself into then don’t feel bad about missing out.

Ian D. Hall