Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Lucy

Luc Besson has been chasing the specter of his acclaimed feature The Professional for two decades now. Each time, he attempts something either entirely different or entirely similar to his past work and seldom has it been that comparable.

Lucy is another misfire in his career, an admittedly interesting, but deeply flawed exploration of a long-disproved belief that human beings only use 10% of their brain’s capacity. Besson’s theories struggle to find credence, bringing in noted nature documentary narrator Morgan Freeman to try and infuse the project with gravitas. His entire presentation to a room of colleagues regarding the potential for human capacity if they were to move beyond 10% is laughable.

Scarlet Johansson, who plays the eponymous figure, gets a chance to show her acting chops early in the film, but by the time she begins to absorb the drugs that are granting her access to more of her brain’s power, the less approachable and likable she becomes. You care whether she survives or not, but you already know she will, as a downer ending wouldn’t fit well within the framework Besson establishes early on. He flirts with her potential death early on, but eventually discards the notion as the film progresses.

A premise built on fallacies does not make an effective film, no matter how tense or exciting you try to make the action in the rest of the feature. There are some neat effects, but they are weighted down by a preposterous plot that strains the appellation “science fiction” so many have attributed to it.