With Lucy, writer/director Luc Besson’s grasp cannot sustain his out of this world vision of creating an action movie that is as revolutionary in its ideas as it’s stimulating in its visuals, resulting in a muddled mess of both.

The action movie that can stimulate emotionally, visually and intellectually is a rare breed. It’s not every day (hell, every year!) that a Terminator 2, The Matrix or Inception delivers that trifecta. Lucy certainly aims to join that prestigious group, yet doesn’t even come close to grazing the orb.

Besson’s initial plan for reaching this lofty goal isn’t a bad one, a combination of casting Scarlett Johnansson in the title role and the urban myth that we humans only use 10% of our brains, with any increase of which will result in superhuman capabilities.

But too quickly does it all spin out of control into a tornado comprised of nature documentary stock footage, violent action sequences and a never ending, uncomprehensive blabbering about time, space, matter and every other metaphysical hogwash Besson can come up with.

Where Besson does succeed is in his casting of Johnasson as Lucy, an American student in Taiwan who unwillingly gets involved with a Korean mob boss (Min-Sik Choi) and exposed to a new synthetic drug that (you guessed it) enhances her mental power to scary results.

Johansson is in almost every scene and her Lucy is just as smart, sexy, strong, tortured and ass-kicking as any one of Besson’s famed gallery of kick-ass heroines (Nikita and The Fifth Element’s Leeloo among them).

But she is also the most limited. While at first there are some stakes raised in Lucy’s dangerous situation, it doesn’t take long for it to whittle away as her god-juice takes hold and she in turn becomes a supreme being: Invulnerable, impenetrable and boring.  

The beauty found in the best super-beings is not only there powers, but the weaknesses that humble these gods amongst men. Even Superman has his kryptonite.  

With Lucy transformed into a construct rather than a character, she becomes nothing more than a vessel for Besson to preach his word, which is…what exactly? Even having Morgan Freeman in gravitas inducing exposition mode doesn’t make things any clearer, except to clarify that Lucy is both a failed experiment and a missed opportunity.