A Neuroscientist's Review of Lucy
by Ivy Xerxes Glossopharyngeal
July 29th, 2014As I settled in for a Monday matinee to watch Lucy, there were only two other people in the theater - a cute older couple sitting in the front row. So I took the middle seat in the middle row, as I'm want to do when in an empty theater, even counting the rows and seats to make sure I'm in the exact middle. As the previews started to roll, a creepy man walked in, probably in his late 30s, balding and with a beard. Methinks he was there for Scarlett Johanssen, and its possible that maybe I was as well. I was a little creeped out, but he didn't seem to see me, and had his head down as he walked in. First of all, put me in the camp that loved director Luc Besson's original La Femme Nikita from way back in that pre-gunge post 80s haze. I might have enjoyed it a little too much. So I was pumped for Scarlett in a glorious punk retro romp. I couldn't blame the creepy dude for sitting in the back row and running shivers up my spine. For all I know, he was there alone for the same reasons as me. And oh holy shit did we get what we paid for. As a neurobiologist, I was keenly aware of the problems with the neuroscience in the film. Besson didn't even attempt to get anything right.
Everyone in the neuroscience community is blasting Lucy for getting the details wrong. Like, really really wrong. But I didn't care. Because as a piece of art, when you put Lucy up against that other movie that attempted to 'access more than 10% of your brain' from a few years ago, Limitless, Lucy kicks it in the ass and then some. Here's a character that we want accessing more of her brain power, not less. Bradley Cooper's character in Limitless was just a godawful person. CPH4 seems as addictive as the NZT48 from Limitless, but not in that methy way; more in a thirst for knowledge way - even though it looks like Walter White's concoction, like some sort of Lapiz Lazuli crushed up into snortable bits. But Scarlett Johansen is a badass, and she's hilarious when she ironically starts acting like a Stepford wife as she is kicking ass and taking names. Oh I can feel the sound of your arm bones growing ScarJo. There are some sweet fight scenes, especially the anti-fight scene where she controls everyone with her mind and floats them to the ceiling as they ineffectually try to stop her. Creepy bearded late 30s balding dude loved that one. And you gotta love the sweet tune that plays as she goes to rip her CPH4 out of everyone else's peritoneum. She gets 4 more liters of lactate ringers into the blood - christ doctors, one of you is a neurosurgeon, have you ever heard of hypervolemia! And it all ends in a pile of black licorice. Fantastic. And let's all be honest here, Luc Besson creates a hell of a Australopithecus.
Everyone in the neuroscience community is blasting Lucy for getting the details wrong. Like, really really wrong. But I didn't care. Because as a piece of art, when you put Lucy up against that other movie that attempted to 'access more than 10% of your brain' from a few years ago, Limitless, Lucy kicks it in the ass and then some. Here's a character that we want accessing more of her brain power, not less. Bradley Cooper's character in Limitless was just a godawful person. CPH4 seems as addictive as the NZT48 from Limitless, but not in that methy way; more in a thirst for knowledge way - even though it looks like Walter White's concoction, like some sort of Lapiz Lazuli crushed up into snortable bits. But Scarlett Johansen is a badass, and she's hilarious when she ironically starts acting like a Stepford wife as she is kicking ass and taking names. Oh I can feel the sound of your arm bones growing ScarJo. There are some sweet fight scenes, especially the anti-fight scene where she controls everyone with her mind and floats them to the ceiling as they ineffectually try to stop her. Creepy bearded late 30s balding dude loved that one. And you gotta love the sweet tune that plays as she goes to rip her CPH4 out of everyone else's peritoneum. She gets 4 more liters of lactate ringers into the blood - christ doctors, one of you is a neurosurgeon, have you ever heard of hypervolemia! And it all ends in a pile of black licorice. Fantastic. And let's all be honest here, Luc Besson creates a hell of a Australopithecus.
Now if you're going to quibble over the dastardly science, remember that anything is possible, and who knows what we'll discover in the future. Maybe an australopithecus did inhabit what is modern day Manhattan. Maybe we did evolve 1 billion years ago. Maybe we will be able to change our hair and read people's memories after we access about 50% of our brain. And if we can access 40% of our brain, we can control other people. Um, actually, why would I want to control other people, I'd rather be able to control my own life. Or frogs. Maybe that comes at 30%. Oh that's right, that is the problem neuroscientists are having with this movie, is that the 10% thing is a horrible myth that won't go away. In reality, we are all accessing 100% of our brains. The premise is essentially flawed. And as Lucy says, 'ignorance brings chaos, not knowledge.' And she's accessing 100% of her cerebral capacity during that thought! And it probably galls neuroscientists to no end that Morgan Freeman is the scientist feeding us this knowledge. Because we all believe anything Morgan Freeman says. And you have to admit, it is pretty fantastic the way he says 'Cerebral Capacity.' Just think it in his voice - 'Cerebral Capacity.' So awesome. 'Dolphins use 20% Cerebral Capacity.' Complete bullshit but I believe it. What else could Morgan Freeman say in his Morgan Freeman voice that I would believe: 'The earth is made of styrofoam. My coat is filled with feral cats. They tickle.'
Essentially, it's hard to go in and use suspension of disbelief because the premise lies to your face. But I love Luc Besson. And let's face it, Lucy was fun as hell to watch, so how can we fix it? Here's what I say - let's not quibble over what the movie got wrong, let's quibble over what it could have been. We just need to change the premise. And actually, if you change it, the guts of the movie still work. Essentially, instead of her reaching a higher percent of her 'cerebral capacity' the drug could have allowed her to self-evolve past her human state. In this manner, they could keep everything the same, and we could consider what life could be capable of if it continued to evolve. What would happen if this evolution occurred in an accelerated fashion in one person? What if a drug could stimulate that? What could life tap into? For example, Morgan Freeman could talk about the dolphin using complex sonar as an example of what life is capable of - instead of fabricating inane statements like the dolphin is accessing 20% of it's 'cerebral capacity.' Or listen to Morgan Freeman say that definitely, most definitely we know that 40% is control of matter and 20% is control of other people, but 60%... well shit on toast, that's science fiction, like a dog watching the moon. Instead, we could have heard Morgan Freeman talk about the quickness of hummingbird wings, we could have heard about the regenerative abilities of some invertebrates, we could have heard about tardigrades that can live is space. And Morgan could say, that with our technology, we are now capable of developing pharmaceuticals that could allow us to access these characteristics. But what if we could develop a drug that could stimulate accelerated random evolution, what else could be possible? For goodness sakes, hardly anything would need to be changed and it would make for a better movie that would jive more with everyones bullshit detector. For instance, at one point her eyes even flip through different species. The movie would make so much more sense. Was this Luc Besson's original intention with CPH4? Did the producers make him change it because they thought it would be more relatiable with the 10% lunacy that keeps being perpetuated, because they think the audience is filled with idiots? These are questions I need to know. These are questions the bearded creepy dude needs to know.
Even lines like 'people are concerned more with having than with being' would fit better. The nature cutouts at the beginning would work great. And the ideas of being self-sufficient, or reproducing - the immortal or reproduction dilemma, are basic evolutionary concepts that fit nicely with this premise. And when you access more of your brain, you crawl up on the wall like the old lady in the Exorcist III. Is she possessed? Or maybe she has evolved the ability to walk on walls like a spider, eh? See where I'm going with this? The end of the movie, when she accesses our information technology to share her knowledge, could have been a comment on our social evolution instead of just a weird moment where Pierre walks in, still thinking he might get laid and suddenly he's in the Matrix and Scarlett is a big pile of black licorice (or some sort of new generation computer presumes Morgan Freeman - windows vista?) that hands the doctors a flash drive with stars on it. A flash drive! Has she heard of the cloud!?! Everything is in the cloud! She holds all that knowledge, and she's just passing it around on a flash drive!
Other blips on the radar that could be changed to fit this framework: when Lucy talks about time by using the example of filming a car. Why filming? Why not just consider the ability for us to perceive the speed of a car - that our nervous system would not be able to perceive it if it was going to fast. And that she has evolved to see everything no matter the space and time.
We also see Lucy as stronger, more athletic, and really fucking hungry. The brain does use 20% of our metabolism, so this is believable if it is evolving, and using more of its cerebral capacity I suppose. Although maybe not reading MRIs. And hey mom, I feel everything, air, space, vibrations, people, gravity, your brain, your milk in my mouth when I was an itty bitty baby. But don't bother with the anesthesia, Doc, because I can't feel pain at all. None. Seriously, I can feel that goddamn siamese cat when I was 6 months old but I can't feel pain. And I can feel magnetic and electric waves and manipulate them. But pain is for the birds. I got too many endorphins surging at this percent of my capacity! And I can sense about everyone and everything except this Jang guy that wants to murder me and carve me up like Dahmer. But all of this could be kept the same, because, well, they are funny.
The two other funniest scenes - all the Taiwanese guys breaking out rocket launchers and machine guns in front of the university as the French police drive up. The look on Morgan Freeman's face when he encounters Lucy.
However, it wasn't all bubble gum action, and good laughs. I did learn a couple things from Lucy -
1. Eternal life exists:
Pierre: I'd rather be late than dead.
Lucy: We never really die.
Well then.
2. Time is our only goal.
Wait a minute, why did I spend all this time watching Lucy, and what am I doing writing right now. It's time to move on, it's time to get going.
Wait a minute, why did I spend all this time watching Lucy, and what am I doing writing right now. It's time to move on, it's time to get going.
So really, Pierre is really the only loser here - Lucy is such a tease. Remember when he wants to leave, and says 'I'm not sure I can be any help.' And she gives him eyes and says she wants him to be a reminder. A reminder of what? I need to know. Creepy bearded dude really needs to know. A reminder of musky dudes with sexual charisma? How do you not go to a sex scene with Lucy rocking 80%? You can talk about her vapid roommate who actually utters the statement 'who speaks chinese? I don't' but you won't go there. She couldn't feel desire though. She could have told him this. Come on Lucy, you gotta communicate. You were a pile of black licorice before I even knew ye.
In conclusion, if a masterpiece like 2001: A Space Odyssey is equivalent to enjoying a piece of steak, I enjoyed this like a bag of Doritos - it was fun going down, but it didn't make me feel so good. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is still leader in the clubhouse for the Schleich this year, but if you want a good laugh and a good time, leave the CPH4 at home and take in Lucy.
But if you must think during it, just remember her brain is evolving, not accessing more of her 'cerebral capacity.'
In the words of Lucy - 'Now you know what to do with it.'
Rating: Half a Cherry Coke. Not sure if it's half full or half empty.