Mercy (2026): A Review (Review #2115)

MERCY

I think Chris Pratt is a fine action star. I do not think that he is an actor. There is a difference between the two. As such, when I went to a secret 3-D early screening of Mercy, I asked myself, "Do people want action star Chris Pratt sitting down for most of the film's runtime?". Judging from the tepid reaction that I saw, I would say that the answer is "sorta". Mercy is not particularly good, and certainly not worth 3-D. Still, it is not going to be anywhere near the worst movie of the year.

Detective Chris Raven (Pratt) wakes up hungover, tied to a chair and totally confused. He is shocked to find that he is now on trial for the murder of his wife Nicole (Annabelle Wallis). There is great irony in having Detective Raven on trial in the Mercy court. Mercy is the AI court system meant to streamline justice. The AI is now judge, jury and (if needed) executioner. Detective Raven was not only a strong proponent of Mercy when it debuted, he arrested the first person convicted through Mercy. 

Now, here he is, charged with murder. Mercy's Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) informs Raven of what he should already know. He has 90 minutes to prove his innocence. Otherwise, he will be executed. Innocent means hitting a probability threshold. I believe it has to be under 40%, but I cannot recall. Currently, he sits at 98% probability. Raven is allowed to make contact with potential witnesses and examine all evidence which is available via data.  

The case is damning against Raven. He is a relapsed alcoholic, still struggling with guilt over the death of his partner Ray Vale (Kenneth Choi). His AA sponsor Rob Nelson (Chris Sullivan) was unaware that Raven had fallen off the wagon. There is endless audio and video footage of Raven being belligerent towards Nicole. He also has a fraught relationship with his daughter Britt (Kylie Rogers). 

As he continues his frenzied investigation, he must rely on his new partner, Jacqueline "Jaq" Diallo (Kalli Reis) to film things and give him the needed information. Could Nicole's potential lover Patrick Burke (Jeff Pierre) be the killer? Could it be someone closer to the Ravens? Perhaps someone who could not only have been at their Sunday cookout but hidden in their house for two days? Time is running out for Chris, so he must hurry to save himself, bring the real killer to justice and save Mercy from total destruction.

I went to see Mercy with my cousins. They are very much opposed to my taking notes while watching. As such, my Mercy memory may be hazy. At the end of Mercy, they all said that they liked it. I said that it was alright, and one of them replied that I was hard to please. I think that in this case, I was more merciful than some of my reviewing brethren. 

Mercy is not good. By the end, Mercy becomes pretty silly even for its premise. It does not help that our two leads are given little to work with.

As stated, I think Chris Pratt is a fine action star. He can be charming, effective and strong when knocking down bad guys or dinosaurs. What he cannot do is act if by acting you mean show dramatic range. Mercy gives us bits of him fighting, such as when we see footage of how many cops it takes to take him down. Mercy, however, keeps Pratt sitting down for nearly the entirety of its short runtime. As he has 90 minutes to prove his innocence, Mercy gives us about 100 minutes to watch all this unfold.

And that is what Mercy does: have us watch all this unfold. It feels a bit like one of those theme park rides where you're sitting in your chair while things go around you. That is not a bad thing, although the last time that I went on Star Tours, I came close to becoming violently ill. You have all these icons and images pass by. You see Instagram/TikTok-like videos of interrogations and the crime scene. You see files fly by Pratt's head.

That is, in and of itself, not a terrible thing. It just takes away from what Chris Pratt does best: show off his action skills. His acting skills have never been particularly strong. Mercy will not make one change that idea. I could cut him some slack in that Pratt essentially has no one to work with. He has to act as if he is talking to Ferguson or Reis. They are not really in the room. However, when we see him in footage, Pratt is not doing particularly well either. Pratt is best when having to shoot weapons, not when attempting to show how much he loves his daughter. 

In a curious criticism, I think Rebecca Ferguson comes across as too human to be an AI figure. I think director Timur Bekmambetov made a mistake in not making Ferguson more dispassionate and robotic. Here, she played Judge Maddox as if she were a person and not a machine. Whether this was a flaw in his directing, Marco van Belle's screenplay or a combination is hard to tell. Ferguson frankly is too good an actress to be in material like Mercy. She certainly is a better actor than Chris Pratt.

The other actors were not particularly good. Again, I will cut them all some slack in that their parts did not require much of anything. Perhaps I can say that they were serviceable and nothing more. 

I think some of the Mercy reviews are a bit over-the-top in their vitriol. It is not great. However, it is serviceable entertainment if you do not ask much from it. I knocked some points down from it because frankly I do not see why Mercy needed to be in 3D. Apart from maybe a fire sequence, I do not see why 3D was necessary. Oftentimes, I would lift my 3D glasses up to see if the picture looked any different. It did not. 3D in Mercy seems a silly gimmick rather than a good use for it.

Mercy is being shown very little by reviewers. I judge films based on what they are attempting to achieve. As such, Mercy would have been barely passable. The 3D element, however, is what ultimately pushed it to a mildly negative rating. Mercy, while not the worst film of the year, will mercifully be forgotten save for eventual late-night viewing. 

DECISION: C-