Lucy

What starts out as a potentially great movie winds up being a merely good one in the end. Scarlett Johansson stars as the title character, an American living in Taiwan who gets mixed up with the wrong people and winds up not only a drug mule, but a drug mule with a highly experimental drug placed inside her lower stomach. When the drugs start to leak, Lucy winds up using her brain to full capacity, not only resulting in her ability to control her body but also the forces around her. Luc Besson directs with his usual visual competence, and Johansson is great in the title role. The problem keeping the film from greatness is that it feels as if it's going to some great place, and then suddenly ends at 89 minutes. Granted, it's a good 89 minutes, but I was left feeling a bit unfulfilled. Morgan Freeman shows up as a scientist who knows a lot about brains, while Min-sik Choi (the original Oldboy) plays a true bastard of a bad guy. Surely, the premise is total bullshit, but the resultant mayhem is fun bullshit at that. I just wish Besson had a more complete story to tell.