"Have you ever really looked at your hand? Like, with 100% of your brain?"
The absolutely idiotic idea that we only use 10% of our brains comes from the fact that roughly 10% of our brain matter is made up of actual grey matter. This is like saying you only use 10% of your car because most of the car is not the engine. It's stupid, and people who write entire movies around this concept (I'm looking at you, Powder and Limitless) are stupid, but they think that you are even stupider. To quickly sum Lucy up, Scarlett Johansson has her brain improved by science, which leads to her becoming magical. Like, Matrix magical.
Here are 10 plots for such a movie that someone using slightly more than 10% of their brain could have come up with by working 10% as hard as possible.
10. A movie where Scarlett Johansson's intelligence is improved exponentially by science and she doesn't become a wizard. I'm sorry if I'm ruining any future scientists' fantasies, but if you become smarter than the smartest scientist who ever lived, physics will still f-ing apply to you. Sure, you may be so smart that you realize we've had physics horribly wrong this whole time, but atoms and molecules will not break their bonds and reorganize themselves according to your will just because they're so happy that someone finally understands them.
9. A movie about Scarlett Johansson using 100% of her brain. This would actually just be a documentary about Scarlett Johansson, because everyone uses 100% of their brain. The film would follow her around her daily life. I would watch this movie. I would own this movie. Someone please make this movie.
8. A movie where Scarlett Johansson becomes super-intelligent and gets hired to do a rewrite of Transcendence, starring Johnny Depp. Now this would be a great movie. We could examine both the possibility of human upgrading and the specter of computer-based artificial intelligence, all without violating the basic laws of reality. Plus, I feel like super-Scarlett and Johnny Depp (as himself) would have a great love story before she eventually rips him apart at a subatomic level because of her superpowers (not from being intelligent—just the superpowers that Johansson already has).
7. Short Circuit 3. Instead of writing Lucy, the screenwriters could have written an exciting finale to the 1986 sci-fi comedy romp starring the iconic film robot Johnny 5 (and its lesser-known 1988 sequel). Why didn't they? That's something that would take more than 100% of our current-model puny brains to figure out.
6. A movie where my dog accidentally ingests black-market superdrugs and develops the ability to talk, fight crime, and alter reality. OK, so this is the plot of Lucy, except starring my dog Benchley instead of Scarlett Johansson. If you knew how adorable Benchley is, though, you'd know that this is the smartest idea anyone has ever had, ever.
5. A movie where Morgan Freeman refuses to explain things. The world is falling apart, and the only person who can break it down for the average person to understand is Morgan Freeman...and he's not talking. Chris Pratt leads a gang of superheroes who must convince Freeman to open his mouth and reveal the backstory of this world crisis, as well as (somehow) the internal thoughts and motivations of all of the main characters. Twist ending: the reason Freeman can't talk is because he is God, and God cannot reveal his mysterious workings to us mortals.
4. A movie where a computer thinks it's Scarlett Johansson—and no one has the heart to tell it that it's not. This still leads to the end of humanity, but only after the computer reads a Perez Hilton post making fun of it, realizes it's not Scarlett Johansson, and then gets so embarrassed that it wipes out all life so that no one can ever accuse it of not being Scarlett Johansson again. I'm not saying this is a smart movie...just smarter than Lucy.
3. An animated film about talking scooters. Following the success of Cars, the rip-off franchise Planes, and the long-running Thomas the Tank Engine, the time is ripe to jump on one of the few methods of transport that hasn't been turned into a Pixar-esque copycat: scooters. This follows the adventures of a plucky young Segway who must win the trust of a town full of traditional Vespas so that they can team up to fight the evil door corporations who want to put doors on everything.
2. A movie where rich people are able to buy intelligence upgrades and suddenly the world is split into two competing species. This would be no fun to write, though, because by the time it finally went into production, you would just be able to watch news stories about it. Right on your eyelids, if you're rich enough. By the time it comes out, it will just be too boring for the Supers to enjoy, and too depressing for the Normals to sit though.
1. A movie where people tape GoPros to a bunch of raccoons and release them into a new town. If you'll excuse me, typing that sentence immediately got me a call from my agent (who I didn't even have before starting this article). This one is mine, I called it.
(by Johnny McNulty)