Lucy

Another action role for Scarlett Johansson: 'Lucy' is muscular sci-fi from Luc Besson. 

Scarlett Johansson has become the 'kick-ass female lead' du jour in Movieland. It was the Marvel franchise that started all this: her acrobatic, leather-clad Black Widow of Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) (as well as next year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron ). Which isn't to say she has abandoned her post as indie muse. This archetype takes her into the art-house as well as the commercial: her turn as alien seductress in Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin (2014)   was a tour de force.

It will come as no surprise that her latest, the sci-fi/action movie Lucy, sees her playing the title role as a ruthless warrior, evolved beyond human logic. 

The film topped US Box offices, beating Hercules; collecting $44 million on its first weekend. It was written, directed and edited by Luc Besson, the Frenchman behind muscular thrillers L eon: The Professional, Taxi, The Fifth Element and Taken 2. 

Lucy takes place in less than a day, and sees Johansson’s character, a hard-partying student living in Taiwan, become the victim of a drug mule scheme gone-wrong. The result, an explosive growth of cells in Lucy’s brain, leads to the creation of a sort of super-person with brain and brawn in equal measure. 

Supported by the mighty Morgan Freeman as a professor of neuroscience, Johansson’s triumphs in showing that with great mental and physical power often comes great vulnerability and pain: she delivers this performance with aplomb.

Unafraid to showcase high levels of stylised violence, the film is pure stimulation: what it lacks in originality it more than makes up for in top-quality brawn.