LUCY  3.5***

              Starting with the provocative premise that human beings use only 10% of their brain capacity,  French filmmaker Luc Besson ( “The Professional”, “Taken”, “The Transporter” & “La Femme Nikita”), who knew that this percentage was inaccurate, nonetheless plunged ahead with this inventive adventure, revolving around a naïve young American named Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) who gets tricked into delivering a mysterious metal briefcase to a Taiwanese drug lord  who then forces her to become one of his drug mules. When there’s leakage from the bag of blue crystals  that’s been surgically inserted in her abdomen, an amazing metamorphosis begins to occur. Lucy’s brain begins to use more and more of its power (going from 10% to 20%, then to 40% and so on) and thus  reaching heretofore unexplored human levels of aptitude. At first  she's hung-over, then next she's taking out a whole squad of hit men, then x-raying her roommate's body and diagnosing her with a single touch, and during every spare moment  in this fast moving story she’s on the computer totally absorbing i.e. downloading huge volumes of data at a fantastic speed.

The movie has been primarily sold as Johansson being a butt-kicking action character, but that is only partly true part . Actually there is more emphasis on cerebral aspects and as the movie unfolds, Lucy is  discovering  new and growing brain powers and trying to understand and assimilate them.

  After a decade when the only person to take her seriously as an actress was Woody Allen, Scarlett Johansson seems to have found her groove of late, with  “Lucy” as further confirmation of her niche.
She’s been a poker-faced Russian heroine in the comic book  “The Avengers” series, a murderously humorless but seductive alien in “Under the Skin” and a voice a guy could fall in love with in “Her.” And that’s the polished skill-set she brings to “Lucy,”  

 Johansson uses the exact right take and tone for the role of Lucy: slightly invested, mostly removed, observing it all with a bemused grin as she becomes more and more hyper-intelligent . She continues to surprise—she's become the rare actress who can  use her obvious sex appeal while at the same time surprising you with a convincing performance that here portrays not only “street smarts” but  hyper-intelligence. This may not quite be an Oscar worthy performance but it is one that is  perfectly portrayed and consistently on .She is sensational first as the terrified Lucy who then evolves into the confused and baffled Lucy and then into an almost God-like being. Johansson is perfect in all three personas. Lucy isn't quite as smart as it pretends to be, but it doesn't need to be. It has a movie star at its center who can more than take care of that on her own.

Lucy” continues a happy trend this summer. Unlike so many brain-dead big budget action movies, this is an excellent  sci-fi movie that effectively balances thoughtful or clever ideas with exhilarating action, each feeding the other. Lucy” follows nicely in the footsteps of “Edge of Tomorrow”,  “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” “Snowpiercer” and “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.”

Clark

PS: As you may know I am a Big fan of Scarlett Johansson. BUT despite that, I was highly impressed with her performance in this movie. She has become a very gifted actress who also happens to be a very, very attractive young lady !!

 

 

SNOWPIERCER 3.5****

Within the space of a 60-foot-by-9-foot train car, “Snowpiercer” packs in more action, inventiveness, energy and ideas than most summer blockbusters that have whole galaxies at their disposal.  It is a sleek sci-fi/action epic that has a lot on its mind and a exhilarating sense of momentum and pacing. This thing MOVES.

The “thing” in question is the Snowpiercer, a super train built by an eccentric billionaire named Wilford that circles the earth exactly once per year. In  the year 2014 when an attempt to arrest  global warming backfires and plunges the world into a deadly Ice Age,  the Snowpiercer becomes an “ark train” for the last 1,000 people on earth, hurtling round and round the world for the next 17 years.

It’s been a rough ride, especially for the poor…. i.e. the lower class of the survivors. The movie starts at the back of the train, where the poorest  are crammed together in grubby cots like refugees, subsisting on gelatinous protein bars ( which you later discover are made of finely ground up roaches and colored black), who are prodded and threatened (and even tortured) by gun-wielding guards. Every once in a while, the officious Minister Mason (an unrecognizable and riotously funny Tilda Swinton, looking like a cross between Margaret Thatcher and a  toad) comes to the back to sternly lecture the rabble not to want anything more than the bare-bones subsistent they’re given. “Know. Your. Place,” she shouts.

A few, though, have had enough of their squalid life. Curtis (Chris Evans…looking very different from his gleaming Captain America role) plans to lead a revolt and storm forward through the train to the front, where the never-seen Wilford is supposedly running the engine, and seize control.

Up until the halfway point, “Snowpiercer” feels like a wildly clever but still relatively straightforward action movie, with a clear narrative goal in sight. But then things start to change. There are oddly lyrical moments amid the mayhem of extreme close-ups of people killing or being killed.. The effect is disorienting. Then, as the rebels move forward, they start to enter the train cars used by the wealthy riders. These are positively surreal, including an aquarium that arches over the ceiling of the train car, then there’s a car full of peach trees, and, most strangely, a cheery classroom train in which the perky teacher (Allison Pill) leads the children in peppy songs extolling the saintliness of the revered Wilford. The grubby, blood-spattered rebels seem wildly out of place in these surreal venues.

As the rebels get closer to the train’s engine, we realize that the real engine driving “Snowpiercer” isn’t action but ideas, big ideas and not just about economic inequality (although that’s a big driver here) but the very nature of a functioning civilization itself. The movie makes you  consider whether it’s human nature to want to live in an unequal society where we need to feel envious of the guy in the train car in front of us and fearful of the guy in the train car behind us. “Snowpiercer” seamlessly blends all its elements together into a masterpiece of thought-provoking science fiction  that turns out to be one hell of a ride.

Rated “R” for heavy violence and some language and drug content.

Clark

NOTE: You may not find this at the theaters as it got a very limited release…but it’s already out on DVD and TV channels and Netflix.

 

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS… 3.2***

 

         “The Fault in Our Stars”  is a heart wrenching story about the effects on all involved when someone is dying , about first, and probably, the last love of 2 young people, and about how you must play the game of life with the cards you are dealt. It had the potential to be a very emotionally manipulative story but it isn't. Yes, it breaks your heart but not because it's so sad but because you really care for the characters and truly can feel their joy and heartache. It's also  funny and insightful with just the  right blend of levity and honesty.  This could so easily have gone wrong: a story about two teenagers facing life- ending incurable cancer could so easily have been overly-sentimental. But, while being a real tear-jerker, the movie beautifully treads that fine line with skill and warmth. Hazel has thyroid cancer which has  metastasized to her lungs, and throughout the film she wears a breathing tube and lugs around a portable oxygen tank. Gus has bone cancer which has gone into remission after the amputation of one leg. They meet at a support group for young people experiencing cancer. A friendship soon develops and heads quickly to romance and love.

 

The movie is based on a very popular best-selling young adult novel by John Green. So it has found a ready audience in spite of its serious subject. But for those who haven’t read the book l (like me) will find this to be an impressive and moving movie. Of course, it would be easy to be cynical about a film like this, dismissing it as mere manipulation, but ultimately all cinema, indeed all art, is manipulative… but this is not a self-pitying story, it is instead  a life-affirming story. .The story bravely confronts the very difficult questions:  How to face death?  How will I be remembered?  Does my life, and will my death, have meaning? .

 

Movies of this sort live or die on one thing - the chemistry between the leads, and here he chemistry is spot-on perfect.  Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort are perfectly cast as Hazel and Gus. Both give powerful performances. They are both amazing and gifted actors. Shailene and Ansel's on-screen chemistry is natural, beautiful and phenomenal. They make Hazel and Gus two very likable  characters  and their story one of the more memorable love stories . Together they are simply marvelous .

 

Clark

 

Footnote: The title of the book and the film comes from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" when Cassius declares: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings". For Hazel and Gus, their cancer may be in the stars but their response to such tragedy is ultimately bravely in themselves.