Scarlett Johansson is not exactly a stranger to playing strong female characters, but this latest film may blow her previous roles out of the water.

The trailer for French director Luc Besson's Lucy hit the web earlier this week and it looks to be Johansson's most badass role to date. The 29-year-old actress stars in the film as a young woman kidnapped by Taiwanese drug traffickers. The gangster's insert a package of drugs in her abdomen, which slips into her system somehow granting her with enhanced strength and superhuman intelligence.

"It is estimated most human beings only use 10% of the brain's capacity," says co-star Morgan Freeman as a psychology professor. "Imagine if we could access 100%. Interesting things begin to happen."

Johansson's character begins with access to 28 percent of her cerebral capacity, allowing her to perform such intellectual feats as learning Chinese in less than an hour. Yet the trailer also implies her intelligence will continue to grow, eventually giving her the power to manipulate her appearance, stop time, and send a group of thugs to their knees with the wave of a finger.

With her increasing intellect also comes a decreasing humanity, as the gun-toting, knife-wielding heroine mows down her opponents with a casual ruthlessness and disregard for life.

"It's like all the things that make me human are fading away," says Johansson in the trailer.

Lucy seems to continue a trend of Johansson playing 'not-quite-human' roles. Last year the actress lent her voice to a sentient computer system in Spike Jonze's Her. In the independent film Under the Skin, she plays an alien predator disguised as a human woman.

Even her current blockbuster hit, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, has her playing the role of a stoic and detached former Soviet spy. Yet all her roles display a kind of depth that some feel is missing among Hollywood's heroines, particularly in the comic book/ sci-fi genres. Johansson spoke of her appreciation for her Black Widow character, and hopes that Marvel Studios will approve a solo movie for the superhero.

"This character, because she's this kind of reluctant superhero, because she doesn't have superpowers, because she does have this really rich back story that doesn't just involve putting on a suit and turning into something else, she's earned her scars," Johansson said in an interview with Hero Complex. "There's something to explore there. We see in this Marvel universe that these movies are kind of audience-driven, so if the people want it ... I'm going to have to paint that suit back on."

Check out the trailer for Lucy below, set for release Aug. 8.