Scarlett Johansson Controls The Universe in First Trailer For Lucy

The Avengers and Winter Soldier femme fatale finally gets her solo superhero movie… just not as Black Widow.

Scarlett Johansson has a big weekend ahead of her, returning for a third go-’round as Black Widow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and starring in the arthouse alien sex-vampire oddity Under The Skin. Now, we also have the first trailer for her new star-vehicle Lucy, a scifi/superhero/gangster action-thriller written and directed by Luc Besson.

Set in the near future, Johansson plays a young woman being forced to smuggle illegal drugs in her stomach by gangsters. Things go bad and the bags containing the narcotics rupture inside her and flood into her bloodstream. Instead of killing her, the chemical cocktail “unlocks the untapped percentage of the human brain” (scifi movies will never stop loving that particular science-myth), granting Lucy superhuman reflexes, smarts, telekinesis and the apparent ability to bend reality itself to her will. In an interesting modern touch, this is visualized by her being able to “swipe” through the world like everything is a giant iPad.

So, it’s Limitless meets Besson’s own La Femme Nikita. I’ve heard worse ideas. Lucy opens in U.S. theaters August 8.