A review of the 2014 movie Lucy

I've been out for some time now; I had some work-related issues to attend to and was unable to post anything for at least a month. But even before that, I had in mind making this post. I usually try not to write negative reviews because I believe that if you don't have anything nice to say, then it's better to say nothing at all. But, in this case, I will break my own rule because I think saying nothing in this particular case will actually be worse. But let's start from the beginning.

The Film
"Lucy" is a science fiction movie written and directed by Luc Besson and released to the public in 2014. The story focuses on Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), a not very bright young Western woman who lives in Hong Kong, and how she is forced into surgery by a local cartel to move drugs inside her body. In the process, the drug package inside her breaks and starts leaking this new drug into her bloodstream, causing her very sudden and drastic physiological changes. In parallel, the movie shows a "science professor" (Morgan Freeman) giving a "lecture" questioning the human capacity to use our own brain. Somehow, the exposure to the new drugs starts in Lucy's body a chain of events that ends up confirming the professor's theory.

Mistakes
Before I start with this section, I'd like to say that although I know I'm talking about a science fiction film and therefore there is some room for fiction and creative licenses, however, this is not a Space Opera or High Fantasy. This story can be described, I think, as an extraordinary thing that happens to an ordinary person in an ordinary world. So, since the movie has no intention of creating a new world with its own set of rules, I think they should, at least, try to respect the scientific rules of the reality we live in. I even agree that some rule-bending could be acceptable. But I think it's completely out of the question to just make up some things and say it's a scientific fact. This seems very dangerous to me because considering the communicative capacity that these audiovisual products have, they can reach many people without biological training who take these ideas as true, generating misinformation on a large scale.

The Human Brain

The idea that the human species has access only to a small fraction of its own brain is not just inaccurate, it's completely wrong. There are several physiological studies that refute this idea. Not only can a regular healthy person use its entire brain, but also we already know pretty well the functions of the different parts of the brain. There is even a map of it as you can see in the previous image. There are, of course, several functions that are unconscious, but that doesn't mean in any way that there are some idle parts in the brain. Those parts are in constant use; we just aren't aware of it. Why? Because it's better that way; just imagine if we had to consciously think every time we take a breath or make our heart beat! So no, there are no idle parts in our brain; every piece of our brain has functions and is in use. This is very important because this is the very theoretical foundation of the entire movie. If we remove this idea, simply there is no movie left. But also because some misinformed people might even believe this story, which is plain and simply a lie.