An American student gets caught up in a drug deal gone wrong.

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An American student in Taipei, Lucy agrees to deliver a suitcase. But everything goes wrong when she’s kidnapped by a local gangster who uses her to transport a new drug to Europe. During the trip, the substance leaks out of the bag in her stomach, resulting in a chain reaction that turns Lucy into a superhuman…

Luc Besson has the means to back up his ambitions, giving himself the biggest budget in the history of his EuropaCorp and acquiring Scarlett Johansson for the lead after failing to get Angelina Jolie. The story sounds intriguing: a 2.0 superheroine doped to the neurones is condemned to become a goddess among men. There’s just one thing missing: a script that measures up to his ideas. The result is a rickety patchwork of unabashed references to better movies, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Limitless by way of The Matrix. Lucy gets lost in heavy style effects when it’s not sinking in all-too-easy and boring gunfire. At least there is the astonishing Scarlett Johansson, who again demonstrates a talent that holds up perfectly against her recent performances: icy in Under the skin, abstract in Her and adrenaline-charged in the Marvel franchise.