Since I saw the first ads about this movie I kept asking myself why Rebecca would do a movie like this? she has so much talent for a very vague movie though, Chris I was like meh he likes to try new stuff or repeat stuff from time to time but it felt very Minority Report from the start. This movie is a total mess that manages to be entertaining only because it moves so fast you do not have time to think about how stupid the script is, not bad to kill time after a busy day at work trying to catch up with my backlog of stuff to watch and I thought this would be a more than ok but it ended up being a total letdown in so many aspects, Timmer Beck Mambbo is back with his 14th movie and while he is great at slick pacing he really tripped over himself with this nothing new story about a detective in the year 2029 who is accused of killing his wife, Chris Pratt plays the lead as Detective Chris Raven and he has exactly 90 minutes to prove his innocence to an AI judge named Mercy while the clock never stops, the whole thing feels like a bootleg of many other movies like it that someone accidentally put on a big screen instead of just leaving it on a streaming service where it belongs, I am sitting there wondering why they even bothered with an IMAX 3D release because there is absolutely nothing here that needs that format or expirience, it is basically a high budget version of a tech nightmare that we have seen done way better in other movies and shows over the years, I am not even gonna lie, the logic is trash because the movie builds the story of a world where everyone is believed guilty until proven innocent which makes zero sense even for a sci fi, well Dred was kinda similar but hey they got Arnold back then, it is one of those times where the director is trying too hard to be deep but ends up just making something that feels like a cheap.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31050594/
- Platform: APPLE TV
[Source](https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/mercy/umc.cmc.1hbqm18jlqklgycvheknqltto)
Rebecca Ferguson is the absolute highlight as Judge Maddox and she adds so much energy she becomes the center of everything and it is a lot of fun to watch her glitch and malfunction as she starts developing some kind of feelings for Pratt, she is basically carrying the entire movie on her shoulders while everyone else is just going through the motions and not really trying, she has these moments where the AI starts to crack and you can see the machine trying to understand human emotion which is the only part of the story that actually hooks you, the way she interacts with Pratt while he is stuck in that chair is the best part of the whole movie because she brings a certain vibe that the rest of the cast is totally missing, I love how she handles the glitching scenes because they look dope and add a bit of flavor to a script that is otherwise pretty thin and predictable, she is for real the only reason I did not push the forward or stop button halfway through because her performance is just that fkn good even when the dialogue is cheesy as f, the movie tries to add deeper moments by showing her struggle with her programming but it usually just leads to another fast paced sequence where things explode or people start screaming for no reason, as I mention above I dont know why she did it, she deserves way better material than this generic trash but she still manages to make her character stand out in a way that is actually impressive.
The way the investigation plays out is absolutely ridiculous because Pratt is investigate his own case from a chair while his partner Jacqueline played by Cali Ree runs around active crime scenes like a headless chicken, you got this guy who is supposed to be a prisoner but he is basically the one calling all the shots and using the court system to do his detective work for him, the whole setup is meant to create maximum tension but instead it just makes you realize how many plot holes they had to jump over to make the 90 minute work so it does feel over extended, the partner Jacqueline is supposed to be his friend but she is barely in the movie and when she is she just looks confused about why she is there in the first place, they try to show some kind of connection between them but it feels forced and does not have the emotional weight that a partner story should have in a crime movie, it is one of those situations where the secondary characters are just there to move the plot along instead of being real people with their own motivations or interesting stuff to do, there is also no time spend building up their relationship so when she finally finds evidence it does not feel earned at all it just feels like a convenient way to get to the next scene, the whole Mercy court system is described as being perfect and unhackable but then Pratt just starts messing with it and looks so simple, if we put it in now days terms he basically prompt hijack the thing, it is just another example of how the script is basically a mess that relies on the audience not paying any attention to the details of how this futuristic world is supposed to work.
I dont want to spoil things because this hasnt been on streaming "officially", if Im not mistaken is releasing late this month, but Im just going to say that its clearly a setup by someone close to him and then trying to blow up the courthouse with a truck full of explosives because the Mercy court executed his innocent brother, I am telling you this twist is so predictable that I saw it coming from the first 20 minutes and it just makes the whole thing feel like a boring slow crawl toward an ending that nobody actually wants, it looks like this was their best attempt but it just comes off as a cartoon villain instead of a real threat and his motivation is just another cliche about revenge that we have seen a million times before, at the end everything tries to come together but the twist that his partner Jacqueline hid evidence just to make the first Mercy case a slam dunk felt like a cheap shortcut that ruined any respect I had for her character in the story, felt like a trash move because it makes her look like a total idiot instead of a complicated person who made a mistake and now has to live with it, the whole final showdown in the courthouse is just people yelling and running through dark hallways while the AI judge glitches out in the background and it is not even scary or exciting it is just loud and annoying, its funny how almost every movie during this Ai times fails to have an Ai character in it, except Ultron though. The way they try to resolve the bomb threat is also super dumb because it involves a lot of geeky talk that means absolutely nothing and just serves as a way to let Pratt be the hero one last time before the clock hits zero, everything about it felt rushed.
I am giving this a 6.5 out of 10 because it is a fun idea that runs out of steam and you should probably just wait to watch it at home instead of spending your hard earned money at the theater, it is not the worst thing I have ever seen but it definitely is not a banger and it is just one of those movies that exists for a weekend and then disappears into the void of streaming content, the production quality is okay but it does not save a script that is basically a collection of stumbles and bad ideas that never really click together, I am disappointed because they got two great actors that make you wanted to like this movie but the director just could not pull it together, the whole thing felt draggy and over extended but the cast still made it watchable enough to finish it even if it constantly make you roll your eyes at some of the absolute stupidity of the plot, if you are bored or need to kill sometime this is a good one time watch candidate and it pops up on your streaming service then go ahead and put it on while you do something else but do not go out of your way to find it or have it on your second monitor, it is just generic streaming slop that tries to act like a big budget event movie and fails at almost everything it tries to do, it was fun to watch Rebecca and Chris having fun and acting goofy during the marketing times though, I really wanted to see Chris Pratt do something cool again but this is just another meh movie in his career that he will probably forget about as soon as the check clears, if they had actually put some effort into the writing and the world building instead of just relying on the fast pacing to hide the flaws could have been something way better like a 7.5, again is not the worst but not something to watch on theaters imo.
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