She clenches her abdomen and takes labored and ragged breaths. The drug bags in her stomach have ruptured and slowly enter her blood stream. She feels strangely revitalized and somehow, in a way – enlightened. Time is now relative to her personal perspective.
Set in our very own familiar home town of Taipei, the recent release “Lucy” follows  a 25 year-old American named Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) studying here. Tricked into being a drug mule by her new boyfriend, a valuable drug named CPH4 is sewn into her abdomen, and she’s ordered to transport it to Europe. Ironically, one of her transporter’s henchmen kick her, and breaks the bag, and it miraculously giving her the ability to “unlock” more than 10% of her mind, she evolves and becomes a fighting machine, and becomes a super-genius.
Taipei is one of the stars of the film and some of its glamour shots from the first part of the movie include the towering Taipei 101, and our famous Din Tai Fung. “The first thing you look at as a director is if the city is photogenic…and Taipei is very photogenic,” Luc Besson (director) said, explaining why he chose our city. “In Taipei, there is a good mixture of the new and the old. You can get a variety in one single shot.”
Besson considered many other Asian cities ten years ago but finally chose Taipei, because he needed a fast paced city. In addition, Scarlett Johansson herself commented that “the city residents were friendly and she felt free to explore.”
     While it made the movie seem very scientific and modern, the concept of “unlocking” more of your brain power is just a rampant urban myth. This idea is completely bogus and unreal, and is constantly attributed to Albert Einstein. According to Barry Beyerstein, a previous professor at UC Berkeley, “if 90% of the brain is normally unused, then damage to these areas should not impair performance.” Essentially this means that if we actually used only 10% of our minds, then if we damaged or removed the other 90%, we would still function normally. This is  false, as even minor brain damage can prove to be devastating to a human’s ability to function.
While this film contains some logical inconsistencies, and has some very, very cheesy parts – the strong performances of both Johansson and Morgan Freeman pull the movie together. If you’re looking for some sci-fi/fighting/action fusion movie, this film is just for you. Thrilling, but sometimes silly, this movie scores a 3/5 rating from me.