Lucy is Besson’s take on an X-Men-like superhero film, in which Scarlett Johansson is turned from ordinary 25-year-old to transcendental telekinetic warrior after being pressed into service as a drug mule. Having ingested an experimental substance called CPH4 (“It’s so new, we haven’t even come up with a street name for it yet,” quips one character), Lucy busts out of a stronghold belonging to gangster boss Jang (Choi Min-sik), and proceeds to lead the bad guys a merry dance across Asia and Europe, as both parties have their own reasons for retrieving the remaining stash of pharmaceuticals. Besson’s more recent films – either as writer, director, or both, as here – have blended a strange grab bag of genres, and Lucy’s no exception. Its plot recalls everything from the HG Wells-derived 1937 fantasy The Man Who Could Work Miracles, noir thriller D.O.A., and the largely-forgotten 90s Terminator rip-off Eve Of Destruction, all with a splash of fellow Frenchman Gaspar Noe’s Enter The Void’s kaleidoscopic trippiness thrown in for good measure. The sci-fi philosophising, where Morgan Freeman (here playing an eminent neuroscientist) theorises about the future of human intelligence, never quite gels with the action, and it’s clear from the opening shot that even Besson isn’t taking his premise seriously. The first act, in which Johansson’s journey from teary-eyed victim to drug-enhanced hellcat is interspersed with Freeman delivering lectures and repeated shots of animals (including a decidedly sub-Serkis hominid), is borderline goofy. It’s also difficult to recall another recent mainstream film which uses quite so much stock footage. Despite all this, the movie has several redeeming features. Besson remains adept at building suspense, even when he’s intercutting rib-shattering violence with gratuitous shots of cheetahs. And with more than a little help from cinematographer Thierry Arbogast, he delivers a sharply-framed and metronomically-paced genre thriller. Then there’s Scarlett Johansson, who serves as the magnet which holds Besson’s bonkers storyline together. The genre elements may scratch up against one another or sometimes collapse entirely, but Johansson remains a relateable, likeable lead, even when her character does things that go against the grain of a leading lady somewhat. Johansson hasn’t yet been given a solo film of her own as Black Widow, but it’s likely that the powers that be at Marvel have watched Lucy by now, and quietly taken note of just how dynamic she is when given the lead role in an action flick. That she manages to wring pathos and even a hint of poetry from a scene in which she’s operated on while simultaneously chatting to her mother over the telephone is evidence of her strength as an actress. Lucy is out in UK cinemas on the 22nd August. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.