At least three times during the \u201cMercy\u201d press screening, I found myself laughing at the absurdity of the events unfolding on screen as a barefoot, hungover Chris Pratt is strapped to a chair in a courtroom overseen by an A.I. judge (Rebecca Ferguson). Set in 2029 Los Angeles, Pratt plays a detective accused of murdering his wife, with only 90 minutes to prove his innocence or face execution by the very system he helped create\u2014the Mercy Court. The twist? He must stay strapped in, relying on tech such as cell phones, surveillance cameras, and witness testimony to secure his freedom. Essentially, it\u2019s a barrage of tiny, rapid pop-up screens for 90 minutes\u2014imagine watching \u201cMinority Report\u201d with Tom Cruise in front of the transparent video wall for the entire film. Pray for the Angel of Mercy, also known as \u201cthe credits.\u201d<\/p>\n
Writer-director Timur Bekmambetov gained praise with the supernatural fantasy thrillers \u201cNight Watch\u201d and \u201cDay Watch\u201d in the early 2000s. Since then, he has shifted into a screenlife filmmaker, using technology like tablets and smartphones to tell stories, as in \u201cUnfriended,\u201d \u201cSearching,\u201d and \u201cProfile.\u201d<\/p>\n
With \u201cMercy,\u201d the audience is assaulted by screen overload as LAPD detective Chris Raven (Pratt) wakes up, strapped to a massive \u201cStar Trek\u201d chair, in a concrete room with a giant video wall. Welcome to Mercy Capital Court, the judicial system presided over by A.I. Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson). Only the baddest of the bad are sent here, where Maddox acts as judge, jury, and executioner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI shouldn\u2019t be here. I helped create the Mercy program,\u201d screams Raven. Here\u2019s where Maddox introduces Alanis Morissette\u2019s \u201cIronic\u201d video, transitioning from judge to VJ, followed by news that Raven is actually on \u201cPunk’d,\u201d followed by the return of the game show \u201cRemote Control,\u201d where he\u2019s the first contestant. Unfortunately, none of that happens\u2014back to the story. Gen Zers, google \u201cMTV.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maddox informs Raven that he is on trial for the murder of his wife (Annabelle Wallis), throwing up videos of the local news (\u201cLAPD officer arrested for murder\u201d), doorbell videos of the angry officer demanding his wife unlock the door, and footage of their daughter, Britt (Kylie Rogers), arriving home to discover the body. Raven doesn\u2019t remember any of that, hungover from binge drinking. He informs Maddox, \u201cI loved my wife. I didn\u2019t hurt her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raven has 90 minutes to prove his innocence using the city\u2019s municipal cloud, which displays a billion tiny 3D screens. These include smartphone footage, surveillance camera clips, Ring doorbell videos, police body camera recordings, bird-feeder cameras, and FaceTime calls to his partner Jaq Diallo (Kali Reis of \u201cTrue Detective: Night Country\u201d), who acts as Raven\u2019s eyes and hands outside. Reis does her best with the material.<\/p>\n
For nearly the entire film, Pratt remains in the chair barking orders at the judge to call up different footage and people while trying to exonerate himself. For artificial intelligence, Ferguson\u2019s Maddox seems human as she smiles, blinks, and appears to second-guess the program. I understand the whole realistic avatar thing, but she comes across as human while Pratt feels a bit A.I.-like.<\/p>\n
Written by Marco van Belle, the plot involves missing chemicals worth $16 million, and \u201cThe Anarchist Cookbook’ shows up. However, by the film’s climax\u2014its only real action scene\u2014the CGI effects have numbed the audience. The characters are so flat that there\u2019s no emotional connection. I felt so detached that I didn\u2019t care about any of them, and I even laughed aloud at several tone-deaf moments. In one scene, a virtual semi-truck zooms by on the video screen while Pratt is strapped into the chair, and his hair is blown by the wake. Must be a D-BOX seat.<\/p>\n
(1 star)<\/p>\n
Now showing in theaters<\/p>\n
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