--- title: "Lucy" year: 2014 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/lucy" fi1m_id: "lucy" imdb_id: "tt2872732" tmdb_id: 240832 wikidata_id: "Q15624215" fi1m_score: 58 critics_score: 64 critics_reviews: 27 published: "2026-10-05T13:26:22.765793+00:00" updated: "2026-10-05T13:26:51.793615+00:00" region: "EE" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Lucy (2014) Directed by Luc Besson · 1h 29m · Action, Science Fiction ## Identity Lucy - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/lucy - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** lucy - **IMDb ID:** tt2872732 - **TMDB ID:** 240832 - **Wikidata ID:** Q15624215 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2872732/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/240832, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15624215 **Fi1m score: 58** · Critics 64 from 27 reviews *In a sentence:* Johansson gets cleverer by the minute and the script cannot keep up > Luc Besson’s thriller about a woman who can use all of her brain is fast, silly and good fun for forty minutes, with Scarlett Johansson holding it together. Then it starts explaining itself, and the explanations are the silliest thing in it. ## Synopsis Taipei. Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), a student, is handcuffed to a briefcase by Richard (Pilou Asbæk), a boyfriend of a week, and sent into a hotel lobby to deliver it to a Korean gangster, Mr. Jang (Choi Min-sik). The case holds four bags of a synthetic drug, CPH4. Jang’s men sew one into Lucy’s stomach and the others into three mules bound for Europe. A kick in a holding cell ruptures her bag, and the drug floods her system. In Paris, Professor Norman (Morgan Freeman) lectures on what a human might do with more than ten per cent of the brain; Lucy, who is now using rather more than that, rings him. She also rings a police captain, Pierre Del Rio (Amr Waked), to tell him where the other three bags are. ## Review Luc Besson has written and directed a thriller built on the old saw that people use only ten per cent of their brains. A young woman has a bag of a new drug burst inside her, starts using twenty per cent, then thirty, and the film follows her up the scale, pausing at each step to tell us the number. It is nonsense, and Besson plainly knows it is nonsense, and for about forty minutes that is a workable arrangement. Then he starts to believe it. The opening is the best thing he has shot in years. Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), a student in Taipei, is handcuffed to a briefcase by a boyfriend she has known a week (Pilou Asbæk, cheerful and doomed) and sent into a hotel lobby to deliver it to Mr. Jang (Choi Min-sik). Julien Rey cuts in wildlife footage of a cheetah stalking an antelope as she crosses the marble, which is crude and works. Choi, who was the man with the hammer in [*Oldboy*](https://film.one/film/oldboy), arrives with blood on his face and washes it off with bottled water before he says a word. Thierry Arbogast lights the hotel hard and glassy, so that Johansson, in a leopard-print top and tears, looks like the only soft thing in the building. Johansson plays the frightened woman well, all nervous laughter and bargaining, which matters because the second Lucy has none of it. After the bag ruptures she comes back with a flat voice, a steady stare and no interest in anyone’s feelings, including her own. The scene that caught us off guard is a phone call from an operating table: she rings her mother and, while a surgeon cuts the bag out of her, describes remembering the taste of her milk and the feel of a cat’s fur against her face as a baby. It moved us more than we expected, because Johansson plays it as a woman losing something she can suddenly see all of. A few minutes earlier she had shot a patient on the next table because he was not going to make it, and we laughed, and then felt slightly ashamed of ourselves. The film can do both in one room, for a while. The trouble is Professor Norman. Morgan Freeman is given a lecture hall in Paris and a slideshow, and he tells a polite audience, and us, what a person might do at forty per cent, sixty, ninety. Every time the film cuts back to him, it stops. Besson the writer has decided the ideas need a spokesman, when the images were already doing the job: Lucy pinning a corridor of gunmen to the ceiling, or diagnosing a man from his X-rays at a glance. The percentages appear on screen as title cards. The plot around her has the same problem. Pierre Del Rio (Amr Waked), a Paris police captain, is told to round up the three other mules, and he does it, and then he stands near Lucy for the rest of the film holding a gun she does not need. Jang and his men follow her to Europe for reasons that amount to pride, and Besson stages a car chase against the traffic through Paris that is cut clean and fast and would be exciting if the woman at the wheel could not already stop bullets. Éric Serra’s score, a low electronic throb under a choir, swells whenever a car accelerates. The second half goes somewhere we will not describe, except to say that Hugues Tissandier’s sets and the effects crew get bigger ideas and the wildlife footage comes back in bulk. Somewhere around the hour mark we noticed that we had stopped caring what happened to Lucy, because Lucy had stopped caring, and the film seemed to think that was the point. Most critics have forgiven this stretch. We found it handsome and empty. Besson has done this before and done it better. [*Nikita*](https://film.one/film/nikita) (1990) made a woman into a weapon and never let us forget what it cost her; *Léon* (1994) had the same cold hero, but gave him a girl to be awkward around. Lucy has nobody. Johansson is the reason to watch, and she is a good enough reason for forty minutes. At 89 minutes and a 15 certificate it is at least quick about it, and the first half makes a decent evening if you are prepared to stop listening when the professor starts talking. *Fi1m score 58, published 5 October 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics lean positive on Lucy, though hardly anyone treats it as sensible. The reviews agree that the film is preposterous and that this is largely the point: a brisk flight of fancy that Besson keeps moving. Praise clusters around Scarlett Johansson, whose transformation is singled out again and again as the reason to keep watching. The energetic first half, the bloody action and the inventive imagery of Lucy’s growing powers draw the warmest notices, and several critics call it Besson’s best work in years. The reservations gather in the second half. Many critics find the film overexplains its pseudoscience, grows pompous and loses interest as its heroine nears omniscience, and the abstract ending is a common complaint. The spread is wide: the Los Angeles Times finds it quickly dull, and The Hollywood Reporter calls the storytelling too weak to carry the premise. Only three reviews are negative, but the mixed middle is large. ## Straight answers **Is Lucy worth watching?** *Lucy* is worth watching for its first forty minutes and for Scarlett Johansson, and we scored it 58. The opening in Taipei is fast, silly and good fun, but once Morgan Freeman's professor starts explaining the brain percentages the film stops dead and the second half is handsome and empty. At 89 minutes it is at least quick about it. **How long is Lucy, and what is it rated?** *Lucy* runs 1h 29m. It is an action and science fiction film. **Where can I watch Lucy in Estonia?** *Lucy* is available to rent from Apple TV from €3.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is Lucy, and is it suitable for children?** *Lucy* is a 15 certificate in the UK and R in the US, and it is not for children. The violence is frequent and casual: a drug bag is sewn into Lucy's stomach, she shoots a patient on an operating table because he will not survive, and gunmen are pinned to a ceiling. It is more cold than frightening, so older teenagers who can take Besson's bloodshed will be fine. **How does Lucy compare to Nikita?** *Lucy* is the weaker of the two: [*Nikita*](https://film.one/film/nikita) is the film we recommend beside it. Both are Besson thrillers about a woman turned into a weapon, but Nikita never lets us forget what it costs her, while Lucy stops caring about herself and the film thinks that is the point. Watch *Lucy* for Johansson's first half; watch *Nikita* for the whole thing. **What should I watch after Lucy?** After *Lucy*, try [*Nikita*](https://film.one/film/nikita) (1990, Fi1m 76): Besson’s earlier woman-turned-weapon, and this time the cost of it shows on her face. Then [*Under the Skin*](https://film.one/film/under-the-skin) (2013, Fi1m 81): Johansson as something not quite human, watching people; quiet where this one shouts; and [*Akira*](https://film.one/film/akira) (1988, Fi1m 83): A mind outgrowing its body in Neo-Tokyo, and the animation keeps pace with the idea. ### Reviews we read (27) - **IndieWire**, Gabe Toro (B+): Toro praises the film as an ideal summer movie, despite its unevenly lyrical execution. He singles out Johansson’s performance and the inventive depiction of Lucy’s growing powers. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/culture/review-luc-bessons-lucy-starring-scarlet-johansson-and-morgan-freeman-274231/) - **The AV Club**, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (B+): The critic finds the film an imaginatively goofy, brisk flight of fancy rather than ordinary dumb fun. He praises its energetic first half and weird imagery, while noting that the second half overexplains its premise. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/luc-besson-s-lucy-is-pure-lunacy-1798180974) - **Little White Lies**, David Ehrlich (2/4/4): Ehrlich calls the film an exciting, wildly ambitious action movie and a welcome return to form for Besson. He praises its audacious visual style and the way it fuses familiar genre influences into a chaotic, exhilarating whole. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/lucy) - **Total Film**, Kate Stables (4/5): Stables finds the film preposterous but exhilarating, praising its controlled blend of action, pop science and metaphysical ideas. She especially applauds Scarlett Johansson, whose performance makes Lucy’s transformation compulsively watchable. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/lucy-review/) - **Slant Magazine**, Abhimanyu Das (3/4): The critic finds the film’s absurdity entertaining, despite its failure to fully realize its metaphysical ambition. They praise Johansson’s mesmerizing performance and the film’s visually coherent, exuberantly bloody action. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/lucy/) - **Evening Standard**, David Sexton (70/100, inferred): The critic finds Lucy an entertaining, visually striking comic-book romp, though it loses interest as its heroine approaches omniscience. He praises Scarlett Johansson’s performance, especially her convincing shifts into unnatural intelligence. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/lucy-film-review-another-big-comicbook-treat-intensely-visualised-with-scarlett-johansson-as-lady-vengeance-all-over-again-9684940.html) - **Variety**, Justin Chang (70/100, inferred): Chang finds the film an enjoyable, unpredictable, if wildly uneven sci-fi diversion. He especially praises Scarlett Johansson’s performance for bringing the film’s disparate elements together. [Read](https://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/film-review-lucy-1201267405/) - **Vulture**, David Edelstein (70/100, inferred): Edelstein finds Lucy an outlandishly entertaining blend of silliness and style, despite a weak, abstract ending. He praises its inventive, high-energy action sequences and Johansson’s transformation into an action-movie force. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2014/07/movie-review-luc-besson-lucy-scarlett-johansson.html) - **The Guardian**, Jordan Hoffman (65/100, inferred): Hoffman finds the film mindless and incoherent but ultimately enjoyable, calling it Besson’s finest work since The Fifth Element. He praises Johansson’s magnetic performance and the propulsive action, while faulting a pointless subplot involving Korean criminals and French police. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/23/-sp-lucy-scarlett-johansson-first-look-review) - **The New York Times**, Manohla Dargis (64/100, inferred): The article appears to be a review of Luc Besson’s Lucy, but its text is inaccessible. The available page content does not reveal the critic’s verdict or what the review singles out. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/movies/scarlett-johansson-gets-superpowers-in-luc-besson8217s-8216lucy8217.html) - **Radio Times**, Jeremy Aspinall (3/5): The critic presents the film as a mind-bending, physical spectacle with a mixed-to-positive verdict. They single out Besson’s collision of science-fiction ideas and Johansson’s transformation as its defining attractions. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-xyh19b/lucy/) - **The New Yorker**, Richard Brody (60/100, inferred): Brody finds the film’s science-fiction ideas fascinating and its visual spectacle thrilling, but says its story and implications are clumsy and hollow. He especially praises the audacious, visually inventive sequences that approach the metaphysical scope of Terrence Malick’s *The Tree of Life*. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/luc-bessons-surprisingly-metaphysical-lucy) - **Time Out**, Tom Huddleston (3/5): The critic finds the film ridiculous but highly watchable, calling it Besson’s best since *Léon*. They single out its startlingly psychedelic moments as a key strength. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/lucy) - **Empire**, Ian Nathan (55/100, inferred): Nathan finds the film thrilling and stylish at first, but says it grows pompous and bogged down in scientific prattle. He praises Scarlett Johansson’s scintillating performance as the main reason to keep watching. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/lucy-review/) - **Screen Daily**, Tim Grierson (50/100, inferred): The headline presents the film as both Besson’s best in years and an especially ludicrous effort, suggesting a mixed verdict. It singles out the film’s audacious absurdity, though the review’s details are behind a paywall. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/lucy/5075499.article) - **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (30/100, inferred): Turan finds the film an erratic blend of philosophical speculation and action that quickly becomes dull. He singles out its early superpower sequences as the most entertaining part, while criticizing the droning lectures and overblown ideas. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-lucy-review-20140725-column.html) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, THR Staff (20/100, inferred): The critic dismisses the film as a poorly executed, increasingly absurd superhero spectacle. They single out its unsupported, godlike powers and weak storytelling as undermining both the premise and the action. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/lucy-film-review-720583/) - **HeyUGuys**, Stefan Pape (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the film absurd but captivating and calls it a return to form for Luc Besson. They single out Johansson’s performance and the film’s atmospheric style for praise, while criticizing its heavy-handed use of documentary footage. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/lucy-review/) - **The Skinny**, Josh Slater-Williams (★★★★): The critic finds the film a thrilling, daft success despite its pseudoscientific logic gaps. They praise its assured visual craft and energetic, wide-ranging style. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/lucy) - **Paste**, Geoff Berkshire (8.6): Berkshire finds the film a startling, unpredictable blast of cinematic zeal despite its bogus scientific premise. He particularly praises Scarlett Johansson’s performance and the energetic visual and technical work that make the film’s silliness engaging. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/lucy) - **Eye for Film**, Richard Mowe (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the film uneven but engaging, and ultimately a stimulating, arresting, fun ride. They praise Besson’s creative use of special effects and the premise about evolution and the mind. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/lucy-2014-film-review-by-richard-mowe) - **NME**, Dan Brightmore (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a frantically enjoyable blend of action and sci-fi silliness. They praise Scarlett Johansson’s action performance and the film’s energetic, provocative take on evolutionary ideas. [Read](https://www.nme.com/reviews/reviews-various-artists-15567-304002) - **The Playlist** (64/100, inferred): The page is blocked, so the critic’s verdict cannot be determined. No specific praise or complaint is visible in the supplied text. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/review-luc-bessons-lucy-starring-scarlet-johansson-and-morgan-freeman-20140723/) - **Digital Spy**, Stella Papamichael (3/5): The critic finds the film entertainingly audacious but ultimately vacuous, with Besson's reach exceeding his grasp. She praises its energetic pacing and flamboyant effects, while noting that Lucy becomes difficult to empathize with. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a590728/lucy-review-scarlett-johansson-goes-from-the-sublime-to-the-ridiculous/) - **The Wrap** (60/100, inferred): The critic finds the film absurd but entertaining, though its escalating ideas and action eventually become less engaging. They praise Besson’s knack for keeping his loony, ridiculous films from ever becoming dull. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/lucy-review-scarlett-johansson-morgan-freeman-luc-besson/) - **Den of Geek**, Don Kaye (2.5/5): The critic finds the film’s ambitious ideas overwhelmed by an exhausting, silly action spectacle. He praises some of the finale’s visual effects but faults the storytelling for failing to realize the film’s potential. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/lucy-review/) - **Consequence**, Blake Goble (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a frenetic, emotionally hollow sci-fi actioner whose ideas are poorly executed. They single out its brain-expansion premise as intriguing, but say its attention-deficient approach undermines it. [Read](https://consequence.net/2014/07/film-review-lucy/) ## Details - **Director:** Luc Besson - **Director:** Luc Besson - **Writer:** Luc Besson - **Cinematography:** Thierry Arbogast - **Editor:** Julien Rey - **Music:** Éric Serra - **Production design:** Hugues Tissandier - **Costume design:** Olivier Bériot - **Producer:** Virginie Silla - **Cast:** Scarlett Johansson as Lucy; Morgan Freeman as Professor Norman; Choi Min-sik as Mr. Jang; Amr Waked as Pierre Del Rio; Julian Rhind-Tutt as The Limey; Pilou Asbæk as Richard; Lio Tipton as Caroline; Shin Yoo-ram as Jang's Lieutenant - **Runtime:** 1h 29m - **First release (Brazil):** 25 July 2014 - **Genres:** Action, Science Fiction - **Budget:** $40 million - **Box office:** $469 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7zAV_MDC68 ## Where to watch in Estonia - Apple TV: rent €3.99, hd - Apple TV: buy €7.99, sd *Checked 2026-10-05.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Nikita* (1990), Fi1m 76: Besson’s earlier woman-turned-weapon, and this time the cost of it shows on her face. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/nikita.md) - *Under the Skin* (2013), Fi1m 81: Johansson as something not quite human, watching people; quiet where this one shouts. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/under-the-skin.md) - *Limitless* (2011): The same pill-makes-you-clever premise, played as a thriller rather than a sermon. - *Akira* (1988), Fi1m 83: A mind outgrowing its body in Neo-Tokyo, and the animation keeps pace with the idea. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/akira.md) - *Scanners* (1981): Cronenberg’s telepaths in grey Canadian offices; cheap, nasty and far more frightening. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/lucy