Mercy Review
You can’t blame the movie industry for wanting to make movies revolving around A.I. We’ve been doing it for decades, but since A.I. has evolved into what it is today, these movies start to feel more real and scary. Now, while these movies can feel too close to home, we also need them to send a message, an important one that talks about the dangers of using it. Paramount understood this when they dropped the TMNT short, which encouraged kids not to use ChatGPT, but Timur Bekmambetov‘s Mercy doesn’t do that at all and instead does what 90% of films about A.I. do, and that’s humanise it.
Mercy is set in the near future in the year 2029 and follows Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) as he’s put up against the new A.I. Mercy system that’s used to judge cases. He’s been accused of murdering his wife and has 90 minutes to prove himself innocent before being executed.
On paper, this movie does sound quite interesting. I’ve known many people who have read the synopsis and have gained interest before taking one look at the trailer and realising that maybe this movie isn’t all that it’s set out to be. Never judge a film by its trailer, but this is one instance where you can because you know exactly what you’re getting.
The Mercy system was created to shorten the lengths of trials and to ensure that the right verdict was made at all times. There have been 18 cases, with all of them having the verdict of guilty. With Chris being the 19th case, what’s the likelihood that he’s going to get a not guilty verdict? Mercy is just an irritating movie from start to finish because all it does is try to make the audience feel sympathy for Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson), the AI judge that’s a part of the Mercy system, by hinting at its capabilities to make mistakes.
You can’t feel sympathy for an AI when AI is only as good as the prompts you give it, and that’s proven in this film. It bases everything on fact, which is already a problem when facts can be manipulated by humans, and if an A.I. can’t understand how to be human, how to feel, then how is it as good as people love to claim it to be?
When it comes to the core performances, there’s a major issue. Pratt feels totally miscast as Chris Raven. When watching his performance as the character, you can’t help but imagine another actor, such as Jake Gyllenhaal, for the role, which would’ve been a better fit if the script was also stronger.
Mercy also lets down Ferguson, as she’s forced to make the same three faces throughout the movie. It gets comedic to a certain point, and while she’s playing an A.I. judge, there can still be a lot of emotion in the role. For a film that’s about A.I., it seems like it doesn’t even fully grasp the idea that A.I. can fake emotion. These emotions might not be real human emotions, but that can easily be shown through the performance, and Bekmambetov’s direction doesn’t allow for Ferguson to really experiment with the role.
It doesn’t help that the script for Mercy also happens to be, simply put, pathetic. The script doesn’t even try to hide any of the “plot twists”, if you can even call them that. As soon as you begin to see Chris interact with some of the characters in the film, it becomes so clear who’s in the wrong and who’s in the right. There’s no political messaging regarding the usage and safety of A.I., there’s nothing on America’s judicial system, and there’s not even a message on how the police can make mistakes because even when they attempt that, they still end up making them the heroes in the end.
Mercy’s third act overall is laughable and frustrating with how they villainise a certain minority to bring the cops on top and to make A.I. look good. The only messages that this movie sends are pro-A.I. ones and cop propaganda. Why this movie has been advertised for IMAX and why they’ve been pushing the 3D agenda is completely beyond me, but the only thing I can request is that you don’t waste your money on a movie that’s likely to have Donald Trump endorse it.
★★
In Cinemas from January 23rd / Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Chris Sullivan, Annabelle Wallis, Kylie Rogers / Dir: Timur Bekmambetov / Sony Pictures / 15
Discover more from
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
About the Author
