Was it really 17 years ago that Luc Besson made the world - and Bruce Willis - cooler by unleashing the high-pop-culture classic The Fifth Element? In that, Milla Jovovich played Leeloo, a formerly omnipotent being saved from extinction and returned in the body of a woman. In Besson's new film, Scarlett Johansson's Lucy is perhaps the same character in reverse.

Duped into delivering drugs to a Yakuza-like figure in Taipei by a smooth-talking boyfriend, Lucy finds herself a walking drug mule when the underworld figure has a big pouch of some new synthetic wonder drug sewn into her stomach for transportation to Paris.

Unfortunately, thanks to some roughhousing by his minions, the pouch bursts and the drug - a supposed synthetic version of a rare pregnancy hormone that forces exponential growth - is released into her body en masse.

The drug begins to change Lucy into a new state of being through elevated brain function - she can literally climb walls, absorb the contents of the internet, speak new languages and, as she senses the drug will eventually kill her, she jumps on a plane to Europe to track down the rest of the batch of drugs and meet the world's foremost expert in elevated brain function (Morgan Freeman).

Luc Besson has a reputation for wonderfully kick-ass female characters, and Lucy is up there with Leeloo and La Femme Nikita. His screenplay is a little recycled - there is a thematic similarity here to Neil Berger's 2011 film, Limitless, where Bradley Cooper's character had his brain function elevated by drugs. I don't know that Besson needs to underestimate his audience's intelligence by spelling out quite so much of the science behind this science-fiction, like the clock that flashes up the percentage at which Lucy's brain is operating, but his wonderful mix of visuals makes this a beautifully engaging piece of nonsense.

The film is a triumph for Scarlett Johansson. Besson's focus is on her face throughout, and Johansson's nuanced performance is written there, telling the story of Lucy's growing psychological or physiological awareness.

She is one of the most interesting actors working today and I'm really enjoying watching her flex her star power both in big films like the Avengers franchise or supporting small independent productions such as the recent Under The Skin.