Lucy Movie Blurb by Shale July 25, 2014 I went to see this movie despite the fact that its whole premise is based on a discredited myth of humans only using 10% of their brains. The myth probably got started in the late 19th Century and persisted into the 1970s – but that has not stopped it from being used in many sci-fi stories. Sci-fi stories, which require a hefty suspension of disbelief beyond that flawed premise of the story. (BTW, if I can watch The Matrix, when they said the reason for keeping all those humans in tanks was to generate electricity – instead of the more logical use of their brains as organic memory storage, then this flawed conceit is a little easier to wrap 10% of my brain around). That said, I found it to be a very interesting action movie carried by Scarlett Johansson in the titular role. Lucy is an American living in Taiwan and is conned into getting involved in her sleazy boyfriend’s illegal courier service. She finds herself in the midst of drug gang killers led by kingpin Mr. Jang (Min-sik Choi). I liked the cutaway shots of cheetahs taking down a gazelle to accent her situation. Lucy Drug Courier If you watched the trailers, you know that Lucy is forced to work for these killers as a drug mule and has a packet of a very dangerous new drug surgically sewn into her abdomen. (It is a synthetic version of CPH4 produced in small amounts in pregnant women to give a fetus the power and energy to form bones.) She was supposed to transport it, but she is kicked in the abs by a goon in her cell and the pack breaks, sending her into convulsions where she literally climbs the walls and ceiling – first hint of her emerging superpowers as her brain goes beyond 20%. It is a cinch for her to get out of the cell and just calmly walks into a hospital surgery to have the packet removed. Lucy’s Breakout from the Drug Gang All this while we are cutting away to a lecture by prominent research Professor Norman (Morgan Freeman) about what could potentially happen if we used more than 10% of our brain power. Lucy, who has read all his research of 20 years in a matter of seconds contacts the professor for guidance. Lucy with The Prof Also, Mr. Jang and his killers are trying to get their drugs back, which were inserted in three other mules going to several cities in Europe. Lucy contacts French police and starts working with Pierre del Rio (Amr Waked) to intercept the other mules and to help fight the Jang gang. Lucy Driving Cop Car This movie was liked by about 60% of aggregate reviewers and audiences. Most mention its failings but agree that it’s a good summer action movie despite being a bit silly. All sorts of movie tricks by ILM are used to show Lucy’s progression and there are many comparisons to other movies, including one that I thot of while leaving the theater - 2001: A Space Odyssey. (The movie actually opens with a scene of the early hominid named Lucy, the forebear of us all). There were visual and plot references to fictions like The Matrix and Limitless among others.
This just in! Too bad they didn't use this premise that Lucy had her DNA turned on to become 100% functional - tapping into the ability to transcend time and physics as we know it today. New Study Suggests Only 8.2% Of Our Genome Is Functional July 25, 2014 | by Justine Alford In contrast to earlier estimates that suggested as much as 80% of our DNA has some function, University of Oxford scientists have found that a mere 8.2% of the human genome is presently functional. Our DNA is made up of 3.2 billion base pairs- the chemical building blocks found in chromosomes that are strung together to form our genome. It’s a pretty impressive number, but how much of this DNA is functional? That has been a subject of great interest recently given revelations about the vast amount of “junk” DNA, or DNA that does not encode proteins, that seems to be present. In fact, almost 99% of the human genome does not encode proteins. ... DNA activity does not necessarily have a functional consequence. Researchers therefore needed to demonstrate that the activity is important. ... Oxford researchers looked at which parts of our genome have avoided accumulating mutations over the last 130 million years. This is because slow rates of genomic evolution are an indication that a sequence is important, i.e. it has a certain function that needs to be retained. ... The researchers found that 8.2% of our DNA is presently functional; the rest is leftover material that has been subjected to large losses or gains over time. However, they also note that not all of this 8.2% is equally important. As mentioned, only 1% of our DNA encodes the proteins that make up our bodies and play critical roles in biological processes. ...
I want to see this movie! I've always believed that most people use emotion to figure out life, instead of intellect. In fact, I fess up: I was way too emotional during my early years. It was only after I hit 50 - that I began to understand the difference between feelings and facts. Thanks for the honest review :2thumbsup: QP
about "junk" DNA: that term is very misleading. there are many non-coding RNAs (that do not code for a protein) that have essential functions. transfer RNA (tRNA), ribosomal RNA (rRNA), and various other catalytic RNAs. tRNAs make up about 90% of the RNA in a cell, so to call the genes for them "non-functional" is incorrect.
I have some free movie tickets somewhere and if I can dig those up I'll probably see it. I can enjoy sci-fi built on a faulty premise although the fact Morgan Freeman has become like the ambassador of science with hosting shows like Through the Wormhole it irks me a bit.
