Chris Pratt's New Movie Is Ice Cube's 'War of the Worlds' All Over Again
From a producer and the studio behind last year's universally panned War of the Worlds remake comes Mercy, a film which celebrates two things everyone agrees are not problematic: AI and cops. What could go right?
It's Minority Report for Dummies
It’s 2029, and LAPD detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) is on trial for the brutal stabbing murder of his wife (Annabelle Wallis). The wrinkle is that, in this not-so-distant future, serious criminal trials are overseen by AI judges in a fairly recent technological innovation spearheaded by Raven himself. Uh-oh! Now, Raven has 90 minutes to prove his innocence to Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson), or he’ll be executed thanks to his own system. Timely!!
Those of us who have little more to occupy ourselves probably remember Amazon's War of the Worlds remake, which starred Ice Cube sitting in a single chair for 90 minutes and reacting to the computer screens in front of him on which the extraterrestrial chaos unfolded. (For his trouble, Cube received a coveted Razzie nomination.) It dropped on Amazon without fanfare, and for good reason—it was awful, and only avoided being the worst movie of last year because it was so unprofessional it ceased to be anything recognizable.
Chris Pratt Joins Ice Cube in the Hot Seat
Mercy, astonishingly, is more of the same. Amazon even stepped in to distribute, though Mercy was improbably given a theatrical release despite it being made for home viewing. It’s another one of those screenlife movies, which are sort of like found footage except they take place on tablets, phones, etc. It’s directed by Timur Bekmambetov, the Kazakh-Russian director of Wanted, who has spearheaded the sub-sub-genre; a producer on Amazon’s War of the Worlds, Bekmambetov has devoted himself to screen life movies with the same vigor and time commitment with which James Cameron has attacked the Avatar franchise. But he’s now slipped into a rote formula that does the genre no justice.
Pratt spends about 95 minutes of this 100-minute movie strapped to a chair, flicking through on-screen files that may hold evidence to prove his innocence. It’s a role that Pratt’s father-in-law, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has done many times in his sleep. Missing in action is any of the characteristic wit and unexpected gravitas that once defined Pratt’s performances. This is either the low point of his career, or it’s the domino which tips us into a long line of Chris Pratt movies made exclusively for release in the UAE. Time will tell.
In fairness, Mercy is not as bad as War of the Worlds, but that’s the definition of damning with faint praise. Ferguson is always watchable, even if here she’s color corrected to look like a pirated film print someone shot on their phone. Chris Sullivan, of The Knick and Presence, has fun with a scenery-chewing role; and, when Pratt finally leaves the chair, the last act comes together for a not-unenjoyable chase through downtown L.A.
MGM/Amazon
Film's Underlying Messages Are Unsettling
But any enjoyment is buried within a politically complicated narrative, one which seems to be pro-AI; pro-authoritarian government; and pro-police brutality, as long as it gets results (or sometimes not). There’s such an unseemly undercurrent to the narrative that you’re left to assume it’s bungled satire. Coupled with Pratt’s humorless performance and the cheap visual effects, Mercy may be for some audiences this generation’s Starship Troopers.
There are terrific examples of screenlife movies—like Searching (2018) and Profile (2021), both of which Bekmambetov produced and the latter of which he directed—but Mercy is not one of them. The gimmick works best within the framework of a thriller, rather than an action spectacle. Whereas a screenlife mystery can, at its best, have the propulsive nature of a real-life investigation, the action and sci-fi examples feel cheap and overcaffeinated.