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PG-13
for violence, bloody images, some strong language, drug content and teen smoking.
Starring
Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Annabelle Wallis, Kylie Rogers, Philicia Saunders
Director
Timur Bekmambetov
Producer
Charles Roven, Robert Amidon,
Genres
Science Fiction
Thriller
Action/Adventure
Released by
Amazon MGM on
1/23/2026
Nationwide
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Trailer
Review
You know the old saying about putting lipstick on a pig? Well, that's pretty much what's happening with Timur Bekmambetov's Mercy, a tedious and preposterous whodunnit. It is so poorly scripted and negligently paced that the distributor (Amazon MGM) has heavily advertised its availability in IMAX and 3-D to compensate. That sort of marketing might work with something like an Avatar movie, but Mercy is no Avatar. In fact, it feels small in every way imaginable - from the story to the visuals to the wooden acting of leads Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson, both of whom appear unwilling to go beyond the bare minimum to cash their paychecks. (I'll forgive Ferguson, who's currently turning out some great work in Silo.)
Had even a modicum of attention been paid to world-building, Mercy might have had a chance as a futuristic, high-tech procedural. Alas, we're left marooned in a timeframe (alleged to be 2029, though it appears more like 2040-ish) where only the barest details have been sketched in. Worse, the movie leans into the whodunnit element. It is extremely difficult to execute a murder mystery in a two-hour movie because of the "conservation of characters" parameter, and Mercy clocks in at just over 90 minutes. There is no suspense and not a lot of intrigue surrounding the identity of the killer. The "reveal" is unsurprising and anticlimactic. Whodunnit? Who cares?
Mercy postulates a near-future in which certain criminals are given a trial at "Mercy Court," where an "infallible" AI figure functions as judge, jury, and executioner. Once the accused comes before the bot, they have 90 minutes to prove their innocence or be executed on the spot. In this case, the defendant is LAPD Detective Chris Raven (Pratt), who faces a mountain of evidence pointing to his having killed his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis), in a fit of rage. He faces Judge Maddox (Ferguson), the implacable figure who presents him with the evidence, then ticks down the time remaining for him to sift through everything and create reasonable doubt.
Mercy plays into the current mood that combines equal parts fear of and fascination with AI capabilities. As with far too many high-concept motion pictures, it gets a lot wrong; there are so many huge plot holes that the runaway truck in the climax could drive through them like a tunnel. The gimmicky screenplay, which mostly features a shackled Chris watching old videos and making genius leaps of intuition, is plodding. Chris is so poorly developed that we're not especially concerned whether he's innocent or guilty. Toward the end, the level of implausibility skyrockets as inane complexities pollute an already convoluted storyline.
Outside of Pratt and Ferguson, the cast is composed of little-known actors, none of whom acquit themselves particularly well. Maybe they're taking their cues from the stars. Pratt's "performance" as the alleged protagonist is stilted and wooden. Ferguson plays her AI judge with a degree of ambiguity (what does that quasi-smile imply?), but I found myself questioning some of her choices. She's not given much to work with, but she doesn't craft anything remotely compelling from the minimal material she has.
The biggest problem with Mercy, aside from its somnambulant pacing, is that the background and storyline are simply too thin. Aside from the hook of a man engaging in a real-time trial for his life, there's not much here. A potential cat-and-mouse game between Chris and Judge Maddox is abandoned early, and the constant reliance on social media posts and cell phone videos becomes monotonous. The movie's attempt to merge found footage with conventional narrative falls on its face. At best, this is a late-night time-waster to be watched on Prime Video when all better options have been exhausted. Paying to see it in IMAX and/or 3-D is a misguided waste of money.
© 2026 James Berardinelli
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