Lucy

If nine out of ten times in an action movie we had a female protagonist, we would be lucky.  As it stands right now, one could probably count all of the main stream actioners with female leads in the past five years on one hand.  It is just not something that studios do, because perhaps it is something that the general audiences do not get behind as easily.  Exceptions are there, as Salt starring Angelina Jolie was able to make $36 million its opening weekend.  Compare that to the numbers that heroes of old (such as Schwarzenegger and Stallone) are able to pull in, and it looks like there could be a case to be made for the ladies.

Myself, I like it.  I enjoy my heroes to be of all kinds of personalities and backgrounds, each different in their own unique way but with a singular ability to grow to meet the challenge.  Two of my favourite protagonists have been females in Sarah Conner and Ellen Ripley, who are both distinct but manage to prove adaptable and strong.  To me, they are iconic.

Writer and Director Luc Besson is the man who gave us The Professional, which is as personal and caring as you can get in a movie with explosions and crazy Gary Oldmens.  Besson works to create Lucy as an atypical action film about a woman (coincidentally enough named Lucy) who, through very unfortunate circumstances, begins having more and more of her brain’s capacity functioning.  The normal human brain, we are told, uses only 10% of its capacity, and Morgan Freeman plays a professor who claims wonderful, god like powers await as more of the brain is unlocked.  We may consider him to be the audience’s wikipedia in this film.

Lucy is kicked off by an emotionally intense scene where Scarlett Johansson’s character (she who is Lucy) is unintentionally absorbed into the realm of high level narcotics dealing and is in fear for her life.  As enrapturing as this sequence was, it was numbed by Besson’s insertion of stock footage to symbolize the mood of the situation in relation to evolution.  Does that sound a little bit weird?  It fit from a logical standpoint, but served as a distraction that kept derailing the frantic and emotional scene that was unravelling.  It also became an undertone of spastic nature that would continue throughout the entire film.

The character of Lucy was an interesting one.  She was a typical party girl who was studying abroad before ingesting some drugs that opened her mind, but not in a psychedelic 60s way.  Once she begins utilizing her brain, she is able to kick ass, which is good.  However, she also turns into a murderer which begins to start a disconnect between her and the audience.  On top of that, her character begins losing the element of human emotions, which is an interesting development for the protagonist to undertake, but also highlights the disconnect.  There is a very good reason why in The Terminator movies the cyborg is not the main character, and that is because the movie goers need a surrogate in the film to connect to emotionally.  They need some sort of investment in the lead to care for the outcome, and that disappears further and further into the void as the story progresses.

Lucy essentially becomes omnipotent and omnipresent because of the evolution of her brain, which pushes the limits of suspension of disbelief.  Superman, as powerful as he is, has his kryptonite to prove as a foil.  Lucy had nothing to get in her way, which brought all action sequences to the point of function over purpose.  By the time the end is reached, I had no idea why there was a gun fight even happening if all she had to do was use her mind to disable the weapons.  None of it really mattered… she could do anything she wanted in her emotionless way.

I could not say that I was bored during the film, just that I lost care for everything that was taking place and had no lingering energy for investment by the rolling out of the finale.  I was treated to some disastrous special effects in two instances.  One where men floated in the air by the powers of a 1990s blue screen technology, and another where I got to see a dinosaur that reminded me of the computer animated ones I saw on the History Channel years ago as I skimmed through the channels in search of something to keep my mind occupied.

Rating - 2 out of 4 stars

Her

When it comes to movies about romance, relationships, and love, many different approaches have been taken and a lot of times we find the same stories being rehashed and tossed upon us.  We get the same, uninspired films about love that are more based off of the concept of passion than off of genuine care and commitment.  Her, written and directed by Spike Jonze, approaches it all from a bit of a different angle, and in fact looks at human social interaction with each other as well.

The plot of the movie is that our protagonist Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) is recovering from his marriage ending and is beginning to understand his own social faults that assisted in the failed relationship with his wife, Catherine (Rooney Mara).  The character of Theodore is indeed a complex one and is captured by Phoenix who delivers vividly the essence of someone who craves love and to enjoy the adventure of the fullness of life but is incapable of true openness and honesty.   It is set in the not so distant future, and onto the market comes an artificially intelligent operating system, which Theodore ends up installing on his computer, which gives birth to Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), the identity that the operating system assumes.  Theodore develops a connection with Samantha, and a romance begins between the two of them.

While the plot is a little far-fetched, it is brought out in the movie easily in a way that does not cost a huge degree of suspension of disbelief from the audience.  We end up seeing a lot of scenes that physically only consist of Joaquin Phoenix, but the dialogue between the two, as well as the delivery of their lines, creates the reality that Samantha is indeed there.  This is a very important hurdle that the movie needed to get over, because without Samantha properly coming to life for the audience, the movie is doomed to fail.  Spike Jonze needs to be credited greatly for the achievement of this, as well as the wonderfully nuanced performance of Phoenix, and the voice acting of Johansson who allows a great depth of emotion to be inserted into her delivery.

While we are watching this oddly formed relationship grow, we see the same struggles undergone that all people end up running into.  Perhaps this commentary by Jonze that there is no perfect mate that technology can create, that even the best advancements in science still fail in the same areas as humans do.  The couple runs into intimacy issues, hidden feelings, jealousy, and everything that is likely to poke its head into the lifespan of a couple.

While Theodore is going through this, his friend Amy (Amy Adams) is suffering through her own relational sufferings and also turns to the companionship of an artificially intelligent friend.  It is easy to watch this film and criticize the ridiculous foundation on which it is based, but do humans not do this sort of thing already?  In some ways, are some people not already married to their phones, tablets, or computers?  Do some people related better to others through electronic media than they do face to face?  How much more crazy is simply adding the AI aspect of the film, and does it actually rationalize the obsession with technological relationships better than any argument than we currently have?

Ultimately this film ponders on our connection with technology and how perhaps that changes us, as we get scenes of people just walking through crowds, amoungst other humans, but just buried into their own portable devices.  When the technology is gone, when we let it go, what beautiful and wonderful things are there for us?  Spike Jonze looks at all of this with a lot of heart and passion, pointing to the complexities of the human experience and the beauty of growth and companionship that our world, both aided by and with the absence of technology, has for us to embrace.

Rating - 3.5 out of 4 stars