Escape to the Movies: Lucy - It's Almost a Black Widow Movie

[CelestDaer]

The big backlash I'm hearing about Lucy is how it's another white girl kidnapped by racial stereotypes as a premise, and then the white girl gets to have her revenge on the kidnappers and that's okay because they started it. Thanks, tumblr.

 

[Random Argument Man]

as for Black Widow... ehhh her own movie wouldn't be that interesting, I mean she's an assasin ok neat. I would rather have Ms Marvel as the first Marvel Female Superhero to get her own movie.

I don't know. It would be interesting of having an Avenger with a grey mentality doing risky stuff in order to accomplish the greater good. Although, they'd need to do something more than just put her in a Spy setting.

It's true that Ms Marvel would be interesting since A. I don't know who the character is. B. The Marvel movies made me interested in Marvel stuff and C. I'd really love a female Marvel Superhero movie so we can finally explore other stories.

 

[walsfeo]

To paraphrase Terry Pratchett, it is an analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way.

Points for the PTerry nod!

Yeah, I'd love Black Widow to be the lead in a movie, but it might be nice to have the other "under-powered" heroes in the film as well. Maybe Hawkeye or Falcon, because I think the three of them would do a heck of a job.

I think one of the problems with Black Widow is not that she's a she but that she almost always knows more than most of the others in a given movie. She knows the agendas, a secret plan, or whatever. It's almost like she's a main character in the same way Sherlock Holmes is the main character of Sherlock Holmes, but he can be impenetrable because we have Watson to bridge the gap. Hawkeye or Falcon could fill that Watson role.

On the other hand, they could do her as the team leader for the Mission Impossible of the MCU, and I guess that wouldn't completely suck.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Well, it's good to hear the movie is good at least. May see it one day. One question; How often do they go on about "10% of the brain! D:"?

If it's not too much, I can probably make it through the movie. I agree with MovieBob about not letting it ruin it for you, but it's just so annoying. Like hearing people say "you did good" after learning you're suppose to say "well".

Plus, they couldn't shut up about it in the trailers. Sill, good to hear there's more to it than that.

Also, The Rock should do well as Shazam(or whatever you call him). Wonder who the kid will be. :/

And aren't they working on a Black Widow movie? Should be good. Like Captain America, only with more killing and pragmatism.

Edit: Hmm...After reading a few more things about the movie, I not so sure I would like it as much as Bob.

Wish he touched on the whole "Killing a man for not know english" thing. Kind of clashes with the whole Knowledge makes you a better, more caring, and good person stuff.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Found the review intersting as always but Bob's last screen has me thinking... Would a black widow movie even work? I know a good movie can be made out of anything but for all her nuance the character is allowed very little range and as one of those connecting elements allowed within multiple different mini-franchises her growth and development would be seriously limited. I know that's a problem for all the characters but they aren't all used as universal multi-verse paste to nearly the same degree...

Spoiler: Spoilers for Winter Soldier

I think it could be a good spy movie set before and after the fall of SHIELD. Black Widow (as portrayed in the films) is first and foremost committed to her mission, using any and all means to get to her goal.

You could write a movie with a nice contrast, cutting from pre-Winter Soldier morally dubious missions she did for unclear goals (she was 'just following orders') and her life now, on the run from the governments of the world and left to determine her own goals. It would give her more prominence to rise as an undeground leader, one who works to find and organize a bunch of superheroes for the greater good (possibly encouraging vigilante status to ensure they don't become tools as she did). That way, they get a few goals accomplished:

1) She becomes a glue that extends beyond the Avengers into the Heroes for Hire series they are setting up, along with other franchises.

2) It sets the stage for a Civil War movie, which I really hope will be made.

3) Black Widow moves into position to replace Captain America as the leader of the (reformed) Avengers once Chris Evans retires.

 

[AxelxGabriel]

Hey Bob? For all that talk about Knowledge being good and all, are you completely forgetting the fact that the further her powers get, the less empathetic Lucy gets and how little concern she has about randomly killing people?

She killed a taxi driver just cause he didn't speak English for fuck's sake!

I haven't watched the movie yet, but I assume it's because everything becomes an equation to her. Do the detriments of ending this life outweigh the objective or hinder it in any way? No? Does keeping them alive hinder the objective? Yes? Then proceed.

Knowledge inherently is neutral, it's the application of said knowledge that can be good or evil. And that's a whole other discussion, lol.

The dude was not in her way at ALL. He was next to another cab driver who she asked if he spoke English and he says yes. He killed that guy for no damn reason at all.

If anything, that and her continuous indifference to murder shows a rather bad example to tout "Knowledge is good!"

 

[RA92]

Eeeh... I think I'll go with Devin Faraci's review. Apparently, this movie is less about waxing the virtues of knowledge and more about doing coke.

That stupidity is part of the film's charm. Every scene I was on the edge of my seat: will the film get even dumber? Can it get even dumber? It did! Again and again it did! Besson seems unclear how basic things like computers and cell phones work, and at no point in the writing process did he bother to stop and do research. There's a great scene on a plane where Lucy is typing away at light speed on two laptops and the movie never explains why she?s doing that or how these two laptops are possibly processing at that speed. It's just, like, a signifier of how smart she is now that she's using TWO laptops really fast.

That scene is a total coke scene, and Lucy is a total coke movie. Some people will say this is a stoner movie ("Whoa dude, what if we could use like ALL of our brain capacity? I bet we could do sweet telekinesis!") or maybe an acid/shrooms movie (there's a ton of bullshit about the meaning of life and being connected and stuff), but it's a cocaine movie. When you do a good line of coke you feel like Lucy - invulnerable, the smartest ************ in the room, totally in control. I can absolutely believe someone who has just been hoovering up rail after rail would be convinced they have opened up more of their brain, and that they will corner you and never stop telling you about it.

So it's dumb on multiple levels.

 

[rancher of monsters]

My problem with the movie isn't the whole 100% thing as it is how unashamed of it they are. Like if it was only brought up once or twice, whatever I could deal with that. But every commercial that comes on is, "Human's can only use 10% of their brains you guys!" at the first sentence. Combine that with the walking mound of disinterest that is Scarlet Johansson (Seriously, I'm not watching a Black Widow movie ever if only because she would be the fucking lead and I can't sit through that)and I can't be bothered to wast my money on this.

 

[i4njw]

are you joking? The Rock would be PERFECT as Shazam. He has the muscle bound super hero look down but can also bring a naive child like wonder to the part.

He'd make an even better Black Adam.

I've been thinking about this. Visually, yeah. He's as close to a live-action Black Adam I can imagine. But as an actor, I can think of few superheroes better suited for him (and that he's better suited for) than Shazam. I'd be fine with Adam, but I'd be thrilled with Shazam.

 

[Brockyman]

My problem with the 10% brain thing is not necessarily that it is wrong. It is that it is wrong in a very specific way.

Lets put it this way: Star Gate uses worm holes. Now, all us nerds know that worm holes don't work like that at all. However, one could argue that it is an entry level introduction to the idea of a worm hole. To paraphrase Terry Pratchett, it is an analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way.

Science fiction pseudo-science doesn't have to be right. In fact, it can be ridiculously and horribly wrong and still be just fine. But it should lead the viewer to the right questions if they delve deeper. This is how dumb science can still make smart science fiction. It opens the mind to new possibilities.

The 10% brain usage trope does not do that at all. It doesn't raise any interesting questions. If you do go look it up all you find is that it is completely wrong in all the most uninteresting ways. There are no further questions to ask, no more knowledge to seek.

In any case, it wont ruin the movie for me. I just really hate the trope. Looking forward to seeing the movie.

The only thing I wanted to address is the wormhole "science". The fact of the matter is, no one really knows how they work, as we've never been able to create one or actually observe one. They are theoretical and only been discovered via equations in General Relativity studies.

I think the real damage here is that people think they know everything, while science itself is the constant quest for knowledge and change. If new evidence comes along, you retest your theories or laws, even if they are considered "proven facts". However, there are many in the scientific community that use the term "settled science", and have almost a religious like zeal for their theories and that's super dangerous thinking...

The fact is, we don't know. We never fully know. There could be a device that manipulates/controls wormholes (or something similar) for travel. There could be non carbon based life. There could be devices that break the speed of light, cancel gravity, terraform planets. The point of sci-fi, and even science itself, is to imagine what can exist.

The argument about the 10% is another case of pretentiousness by the nerd/geek community. The nicest way I can say it to those who are mad about it is, get the f*ck over it.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

This movie still looks completely stupid and tensionless.

You don't give the hero game-breaking superpowers, goddamn it! There's a reason why DIO is the one with Time Stop, why Todd Ingram has psychokinesis and why Frieza can blow up entire planets by himself. It adds tension to the story by making the bad guys threatening. Here? It looks like all she does is pull another superpower out of her ass to solve the problem.

I remember quipping that unless her opponents are also superpowerful, I don't see much point in watching this bullshit. It's like the Crossover Rule of FanFiction; If Frodo is a Jedi, then Sauron has to have the Death Star.

EDIT; And one more thing! It's not a Black Widow movie because despite her skills and resources, Black Widow is still a squishy mortal. She can still be killed just as easily as anyone else.

 

[Shjade]

Wow, and I thought Bob was pretentious....

1 "Rape Survivor cliche"
No. Just No. I have to assume you know nothing about movies or comics so let me enlighten you on the "hero gets his motivation/learns his powers from trauma" cliche
Batman - Bruce Wayne's parents are murdered in front of him
Superman - Entire home planet destroyed sends him to one of the places in the universe he can have superpowers
Spiderman - Painful metamorphosis from radioactive spider bite.
Iron Man - Captured by terrorist and uses the reactor that keeps him alive to power the suit as a side effect
The Hulk - "Duh!"

Others include the Thing, Black Widow, Thor (to lesser extent, more of a "life lesson") Wolverine (and various other X-men)

The only two I can think that didn't go through personal trauma are the Human Torch/Invisible Woman/Mr. Fantastic, although the transformation was kinda painful and the learning of abilities over time and Green Lantern, who got his ring from a dying alien that he didn't know.

So, now that your proven wrong on point 1.

While I don't necessarily agree with Lucy's bit being akin to a rape survivor cliche, your comparisons aren't particularly good. Yes, those are all forms of trauma that their respective participants overcome/react to as part of their path to heroism. However, none of your examples are physically invasive/violations (as is very much the case in rape, and in having your body surgically opened up and filled with something you don't want in there). It's erroneous to suggest any trauma that isn't rape isn't the same as rape in such a context simply because, as I understand your argument, there are all kinds of trauma people have to get over.

I might not go as far as saying Lucy's premise is a rape survivor-type story, but I'd say it's closer to one than any of the examples you put forward.

 

[vid87]

The other big problem with the film is the weird almost racist and sexist vibes I got from the trailer. Yeah, it's exciting to see a female led pseudo-superhero movie. But her origin story is that something was done to her against her will, and she had to survive the trauma in order to obtain her powers. It's practically the same as the overused strong rape survivor cliche.

And also, for all her so called enlightenment, there's that weird moment in the trailer where upon finding out the Asian man speaks no English, she shoots him. Because apparently him being of no use to her at all makes him unworthy of living. Kind of a weird message to send. And finally there's the Chinese text on the walls, which is just made up of random words. That's a language that is used by a huge percentage of the population, reduced to meaningless set dressing. Imagine how jarring it would be to just see English words like 'apple' and 'box' written large on a wall in a film. There's pretty much zero difference here.

-Sexism: I feel, having looked over Besson's work and having first-hand or partial knowledge of many of them, that it's a recurring theme to some capacity - yes, many of his female characters are gutsy, strong, take-no-crap badasses, but that usually stems from them either being experiments or trained soldiers (5th Element, Joan of Arc [both with Milla Jovovich, who excels at the whole "strong but damaged punching bag" thing - how many times has she died throughout Resident Evil?] Starship Troopers, Nikita), having suffered incredible tragedy or trauma (The Professional, Columbiana), or simply being savagely insane (The Family), and that isn't touching on the other things he's worked on where the women are not only victims of intense violence but often involve sexual abuse and slavery (Transporter, Hitman, Taken, From Paris With Love [aka Travolta head-shots a woman]). So, superpowers through kidnapping and forced drug-smuggling frankly sounds up his alley.

-Racism: I have a bit less knowledge on it, but I remember a review of The Family saying something to the effect of Besson being a "traitor." Having seen the movie, I kind've understand - the titular family (DeNiro, Pfeiffer, and the others) are Americans in Paris under a witness protection program hiding from their former mob family. They are, frankly, awful people who quickly take control of various parts of the village they live in (DeNiro destroys a water tank to get back an overcharge on the bill or something and fantasizes about grabbing an annoying neighbor and shoving his face on a hot barbeque grill, Pfeiffer is given attitude by a grocer and BLOWS UP the store, the son immediately runs some kind of information racket at school, and the daughter has an affair with a teacher and almost commits suicide when she finds out he's married, having previously beaten would-be rapists to a pulp with a tennis racket - technically the least troublesome and more sympathetic of them all but nevertheless portrayed as, at best, wildly unstable). The French citizens are either jerks or so cheerfully oblivious that they fall over themselves trying to help the family, but the family, despite being portrayed as conniving, insane, brutal, and revenge-minded, are the people we're supposed to care about. My point is that Besson seems to keep a lot of focus on the American cast when he makes films for the US and anyone who's from another country or isn't Caucasian is usually some sort of antagonist or victim in a broad, stereotypical way. Again, not really surprised by the outcome here.

 

[K12]

My degree was in Psychology and the 10% myth is one of the most annoying things in the entire fucking world!

That being said the last film I watched that was partly based around this idea was "Limitless" (even getting the actual myth wrong and saying 20%) and that was surprisingly good.

I think that people gaining intelligence based superpowers or supercharging the brain is a great sci-fi jumping off point and giving it a vaguely plausible sounding link to actual science is unnecessary. If you're going to go down that route do it right.

I have a real problem with Science fiction which requires you to know as little as possible about science in order to enjoy the science-sounding parts. Doesn't stop it from being a good movie (at all!) but it's just an unnecessary annoyance that adds nothing and irritates nerds like me.

 

[Grabehn]

Hey Bob? For all that talk about Knowledge being good and all, are you completely forgetting the fact that the further her powers get, the less empathetic Lucy gets and how little concern she has about randomly killing people?

She killed a taxi driver just cause he didn't speak English for fuck's sake!

Actually that's precisely what getting that mentally advance would provoke really, considering how "emotions" are usually something that gets in the way, and if she's thinking "rationally" and as it seems, she has limited time, getting things done quicker is kinda of what she'd go for.

 

[SeeDarkly_Xero]

And come on Marvel, give us a Black Widow movie.

Would a black widow movie even work?

-snip- Black Widow moves into position to replace Captain America as the leader of the (reformed) Avengers once Chris Evans retires.

I've said this other places... but where a Black Widow film is concerned... just... no.
Black Widow is an interesting character... but she's not a "leading character" IMO and honestly any attempt to make her one by centering an entire movie on her has to be utterly without fault or you risk diminishing her in the other movies where she's great.
Granted... her film would not likely be as Elektra was to Daredevil... but where she lacks something solo, she adds considerably to team & support dynamics.
And again, she is one of few Marvel female characters with a running title who have an original name and premise that is not the female-counterpart of a male character (She-Hulk, Capt. Marvel, Spiderwoman, etc...) so in that she has a unique appeal.
But on her own, even with Johansson as the actress, I would rather her continue being a substantial part of an ensemble than have Marvel take a swing with her as lead and miss.
With the slate of Marvel films already scheduled but not announced, I think we WILL see a female-led film among them... but I really hope it's not her. I'm personally very satisfied with the way they utilize her in the stories so far.

Though I would not say no to her in any of Marvel's blu-ray one-shots at all.
I would even rather see an entire TV series built around her... but I don't think she carries the iconic stature that these other solo heroes in film have. I think the same is true of Falcon, Hawkeye, and War Machine.
And iconic heroes need strong supporting characters... and those do really well for that specific role.
Give them ample screentime in films on that level and I think they will continue to excel.
To be fair, the right writer/director combination could potentially make it work. But finding that sweet spot is tricky to do and risky to attempt. (James Gunn for GOTG is an excellent example... for while I've always been confident he was the right guy for it, there is no doubt there was inherent risk in the entire enterprise.)
Say Marvel scalped someone like J. H. Williams or Gail Simone to write the film? Maybe...

But when it comes to Marvel putting a female lead up on the big screen, they, because of the nature of the industry and the overall climate of the fan base, can. not. screw. that. up. Not on the first swing.
So no... not on Black Widow. They need something more and I'm willing to wait for it to be done right... not right now.

Just an opinion. And I could be wrong.

 

[Fappy]

Speaking to the bit about Black Widow at the end there, I'd have to agree with you. I wasn't sure she was the right person for the role in Iron Man 2 (even though she wa barely a character then) and some aspects of her performance in the Avengers bothered me. But, Winter Soldier? She fucking nailed the role in that movie, so I really hope they give her her own film eventually. I want more of her!

 

[Steve the Pocket]

And finally there's the Chinese text on the walls, which is just made up of random words. That's a language that is used by a huge percentage of the population, reduced to meaningless set dressing. Imagine how jarring it would be to just see English words like 'apple' and 'box' written large on a wall in a film. There's pretty much zero difference here.

Yeah, there really is no excuse for that in this day and age, especially when major studios personally oversee the dubbing and/or subtitling of their movies into other languages, which includes Chinese in the vast majority of cases. I mean, we've got filmmakers bending over backwards to appease Chinese censors, but actually bothering to write their language correctly, something that doesn't affect the story in any way so you can farm out to the translators you're already paying? Pfft! I'm half-hoping China bans this movie for that, so the studio realizes the impact their decision had.

The 10% myth is annoying precisely because everyone with so much as a middle-school level grasp of science knows it's nonsense, but that still leaves a lot of incredibly annoying idiots who are always taking it completely seriously.

Really? I don't recall learning that in middle school. Maybe I was sick that day.

 

[daxterx2005]

I like how when you say "God" you show Shiggy.

 

[lastjustice]

My whole thing of disliking the stupid over used myth is like taking a bite of a sandwich and getting onions in my first bite, and having pick them off. I might be able to enjoy it from here on , but do I even want to keep going. May be the onions left a bit of their flavor and now I need pull off the lettuce. How much of it do I need pick apart before I just enjoy it...especially when it's my first experience with the sandwich. I don't like a jarringly stupid thing be my initial thing of when I start off a movie. (or just something I hate having right away.) If the movie recovers from the fumble I might forgive it, but they don't always.

Take Edge of Stupidity...I mean Edge of Tomorrow. The set up is completely stupid. No not the aliens crash landing in the middle of Europe...that isn't what I'm talking about, or even the sci fi elements. They screwed up basic real world stuff. As someone who's actually been in the military , I was just rolling my eyes at the first 20 mins of this movie. They would never in a million years force a guy who's made a career of doing PR work to go into combat. Only way that sort of thing would happen is if you had like a say a plane crash...and a limited number of bodies...but when they literally have millions of humans to recruit and send into battle after being properly trained they're going send those guys. That makes as much sense as taking someone and forcing them to perform brain surgery against their will with no experience. The armed forces do not stuff people into combat that have no training there if at all possible. Especially not a deserter, and then arm them with millions of dollars of hardware. This person might use it to try to escape or kill others when they freak the hell out. Having someone who's like that is worse than sending one less person. They are giving you less than nothing. Deserter are throw in the prison...they are done.

There's no way William Cage's CO would ever change orders and hand him over to the General of another country without telling him first.(aside from it was some sort of top secret mission being sprung on him at the last minute, which it wasn't. The armed force is all about long well prepared plans when at all possible. You practice doing something 100 times so one time you really need to do it, you do it right.) If William Cage really didn't want to go...he could resign right then and there. Unlike enlisted guys...commissioned officers can resign. Yet they just dump him on the base, and Bill Paxton talks about going into combat like just some sort of passage of manhood everyone needs to do...when not everyone is cut out for combat. (my roommate is someone I'd never want to go into combat with...the guy would freak out and get us killed.) They don't give someone a day to train and toss them into the meat grinder. You may die out there, but they will give you a fighting chance.

Obviously the movie got more interesting, but the beginning was terrible. I get they wanted come up with a reason a older person like Tom Cruise would be put in the position of a new recruit, as a younger actor could just been that with no one questioning it...but this angle was extremely stupid. I can think of simpler reasons, like he was just at the base filming an ad for the campaign.. (which Operation Downfall...was Operation Failure or backfire already taken?) He went along to show how confident the troops would win, and was just going wear the armor, and hang back as a morale thing not knowing that the critters knew he was coming. Nope they came up with full on stupid reasons.

Lucy looks alright, but I think I will wait till a second run theater gets it like I did with Edge of Tomorrow. I have only so many dollars I want to spend on movies that I see right away....and this been a busy year. Some are going be put in the secondary tier. I suppose if this summer had less going on like a few of the past I'd probably gone and seen Lucy right away, but I have plenty of other stuff to see. (like Guardians of the Galaxy..hell yes!)