Mercy (2026) Movie Review: Chris Pratt Faces an AI Judge in a Slick but Shallow Screenlife Thriller

Mercy, directed by Timur Bekmambetov and written by Marco van Belle, arrives in theaters on January 23, 2026, as the kind of high-concept genre exercise that feels perfectly calibrated for its January release window. Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Atlas Entertainment, and Bazelevs Company, and distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, this 100-minute sci-fi thriller stars Chris Pratt as Detective Chris Raven, an LAPD officer who wakes up in 2029 to find himself accused of murdering his wife and facing trial before an AI judge named Maddox, played by Rebecca Ferguson. The supporting cast includes Annabelle Wallis, Kylie Rogers, Kali Reis, Chris Sullivan, and Kenneth Choi in roles that orbit around Raven's desperate 90-minute race to prove his innocence.

The film matters primarily as an evolution of the screenlife genre that Bekmambetov has championed through productions like Unfriended, Searching, and Missing. By expanding beyond traditional laptop-and-phone interfaces into futuristic holographic displays and AI-reconstructed crime scenes, Mercy attempts to push the format forward while tackling timely anxieties about artificial intelligence, surveillance states, and algorithmic justice. However, the execution reveals a film more interested in technical gimmickry than substantive exploration of its provocative premise.

Story and Screenplay: High Concept Undermined by Shallow Logic

Van Belle's screenplay builds on an undeniably intriguing foundation. In the near-future Los Angeles of 2029, rising crime rates have led to the implementation of the Mercy Court system, where AI Judge Maddox presides over capital cases with brutal efficiency. Defendants deemed highly likely to be guilty are strapped into a chair wired for instant execution and given 90 minutes to use the system's vast database of surveillance footage, phone records, social media posts, and bodycam video to lower their guilt probability below 92 percent. It's guilty until proven innocent, with death as the penalty for failure.

This setup immediately evokes comparisons to Minority Report and other dystopian thrillers about surrendering justice to technology. The irony that Raven himself championed the Mercy system and helped secure its first conviction adds dramatic potential. Watching him navigate the very apparatus he once celebrated could have provided rich thematic territory about hubris, institutional blind spots, and the consequences of trading civil liberties for the illusion of security.

Unfortunately, the script never develops these ideas beyond surface acknowledgment. The film gestures toward concerns about surveillance overreach and algorithmic bias but never commits to a coherent perspective. More problematically, the world-building feels half-formed. We're told crime has spiraled out of control, yet the street-level footage shown emphasizes poverty more than violence. The film introduces the possibility of AI-generated deepfakes and perception manipulation but never explores these threats despite their obvious relevance to a story about digital evidence determining life or death.

The real-time structure creates inherent tension as the clock counts down, but the pacing stumbles badly. The first third drags through excessive exposition and emotional wheel-spinning as Raven alternates between proclaiming innocence and wallowing in self-pity. It takes nearly 30 minutes before he commits to actively investigating, time that could have been spent building character depth or exploring the implications of this judicial nightmare.

The mystery itself follows predictable thriller mechanics. With only a handful of suspects introduced, identifying the actual culprit becomes relatively straightforward long before Raven pieces it together. The twists arrive either too obviously telegraphed or so abruptly that crucial information flies past before viewers can process it. The final act revelations don't earn their emotional weight, instead piling on convenient connections and coincidences that strain credibility.

Most frustratingly, the script's logic contains glaring holes. Character motivations shift without adequate explanation. Critical plot points regarding Raven's alcoholism and memory gaps remain unresolved. The film wants to critique the Mercy system's flaws while simultaneously positioning its preservation as heroic, a contradiction it never reconciles. For a thriller ostensibly about the importance of truth and evidence, Mercy demonstrates surprisingly little rigor in its own internal consistency.

Trailer Mercy (2026)

Acting and Characters: Pratt Stranded, Ferguson Elevates

Chris Pratt faces the considerable challenge of anchoring a film while strapped motionless to a chair for the majority of the runtime. Without his usual physical dynamism or the comic timing that made him a star in Guardians of the Galaxy and Parks and Recreation, Pratt struggles to find his footing. He projects earnestness and determination, but the performance feels strangely one-note, oscillating between anger at his predicament and sadness about his fractured family without discovering the nuance between those poles.

The character itself doesn't help. Raven embodies every cliché of the troubled cop: he's battling alcoholism, haunted by a dead partner, struggling through a painful divorce, and estranged from his teenage daughter. The script saddles him with these narrative burdens without developing any of them beyond shorthand. We never understand what made Raven fall off the wagon or what his relationship with his wife was actually like beyond conflict. His arc from bitter skeptic to determined investigator lacks the specific detail that would make it feel like a genuine character journey rather than plot necessity.

Pratt also seems uncertain whether to play Raven as a fundamentally decent man destroyed by circumstances or a more morally compromised figure whose rough edges are part of his appeal. This ambiguity might work with a more complex script, but here it registers as confusion. The moments demanding raw emotion often feel forced, while scenes requiring investigative sharpness lack the intensity they need.

Rebecca Ferguson fares considerably better despite, or perhaps because of, the constraints of playing an AI construct. Her Judge Maddox maintains an appropriately cold, logical demeanor while allowing subtle hints of something approaching curiosity or even empathy to creep into her performance as the trial progresses. Ferguson's control is remarkable, modulating her voice and micro-expressions to suggest a program beginning to encounter concepts and situations that challenge its programming without ever becoming fully human.

The supporting cast makes minimal impact due to limited screen time and thinly sketched roles. Kali Reis brings physical presence and competence to Raven's partner Jaq, particularly in the film's brief action sequences, but the character exists primarily as a plot device. Chris Sullivan's AA sponsor and Kylie Rogers' estranged daughter feel like obligatory relationship boxes checked rather than fully realized people. Annabelle Wallis appears only in flashbacks and surveillance footage, making it difficult to understand who Nicole was beyond a victim whose death sets the plot in motion.

The lack of meaningful interaction between characters becomes a significant liability. Because Raven spends most of his time talking to Maddox through a screen or making brief video calls, we never get the chemistry and friction that typically energizes thrillers. Everyone exists in isolation, reducing what should be an emotionally charged mystery to a series of disconnected video conferences.

Direction and Technical Aspects: Screenlife Innovation That Can't Sustain Interest

Timur Bekmambetov has spent years refining the screenlife aesthetic, and Mercy represents his most ambitious attempt to expand the format beyond traditional computer interfaces. By setting the story in a futuristic courtroom with holographic displays and AI-reconstructed environments, Bekmambetov liberates himself from the static camera angles that can make screenlife films feel claustrophobic and monotonous. The film moves fluidly between surveillance footage, bodycam perspectives, social media screens, and three-dimensional crime scene reconstructions.

This technical innovation occasionally produces striking moments. The holographic projections that surround Raven, placing him virtually inside locations he's investigating, demonstrate genuine visual imagination. A late-film truck chase through Los Angeles streets, viewed through multiple camera angles simultaneously, generates real excitement. The sheer variety of visual modes keeps the eye engaged even when the story flags.

However, the relentless screen-within-screen-within-screen aesthetic grows exhausting. The film's three editors work overtime to make the constant influx of digital information feel dynamic, but the effect becomes oppressive rather than immersive. Windows open, stack, minimize, and cascade across the frame with such frequency that parsing the relevant details becomes a chore. Important clues flash by too quickly, while less essential information lingers. The presentation prioritizes visual busyness over clarity.

The cinematography by Khalid Mohtaseb struggles when moving outside the Mercy courtroom. Physical locations feel oddly flat and murky, lacking the crisp definition of the digital spaces. The 2029 Los Angeles glimpsed through street footage doesn't feel particularly futuristic or atmospheric, just vaguely run-down. The production design similarly fails to create a convincing sense of place or time beyond some flying police scooters and goofy-looking technology.

Bekmambetov's direction emphasizes momentum over meaning, racing through plot points without allowing them to land emotionally. The film moves so quickly that character moments get shortchanged, yet somehow the pacing still feels off, with dead spots in the first act and a rushed climax that piles revelations on top of each other without adequate breathing room.

Music and Atmosphere: Djawadi's Score Adds Tension, But the Tone Feels Uncertain

Ramin Djawadi's score works overtime to inject urgency and atmosphere into material that often lacks inherent dramatic tension. The music pulses and escalates appropriately as the countdown clock ticks down, using electronic textures that complement the technological setting without becoming overbearing. Djawadi understands the assignment: keep viewers engaged even during extended sequences of Pratt staring at screens and talking to a digital judge.

The sound design similarly tries to compensate for the film's visual limitations. The ambient noise of the Mercy courtroom, the distorted audio of surveillance footage, the digital glitches when Maddox processes unexpected information, all these elements create texture. When the film ventures into action territory, the sound mix brings appropriate intensity to gunfire and vehicle collisions.

Yet the overall atmosphere never coheres into something distinctive or memorable. The tone wavers uncertainly between earnest dystopian warning, slick techno-thriller, and occasionally unintentional comedy. Moments that seem designed to provoke genuine unease about surveillance and algorithmic justice get undercut by plot conveniences and shallow characterization. The film wants to be both a cautionary tale about surrendering civil liberties to technology and an entertaining puzzle-box mystery, and it never reconciles these competing impulses.

The mood never achieves the paranoid intensity of the best surveillance thrillers or the playful intelligence of cleverer mystery films. Instead, Mercy settles into a generic professional competence that's neither particularly bad nor especially good. It's the cinematic equivalent of a streaming algorithm's recommendation: calculated to check boxes and maintain baseline engagement without aspiring to anything more ambitious.

Strengths and Weaknesses

What Works:

• Rebecca Ferguson's layered performance as AI Judge Maddox shows remarkable control
• Innovative expansion of screenlife format beyond traditional computer screens
• Some visually striking sequences, particularly holographic crime reconstructions
• Ramin Djawadi's propulsive score maintains tension throughout
• The basic premise of proving innocence to an AI judge has inherent dramatic potential
• Late-film action sequence provides genuine excitement
• 100-minute runtime prevents complete tedium
• Technical execution shows professional craft in editing and visual effects

What Doesn't Work:

• Chris Pratt's performance feels flat and uncertain, lacking his usual charisma
• Screenplay contains multiple logical inconsistencies and unresolved plot holes
• Mystery too predictable with limited suspects and obvious red herrings
• World-building feels half-formed and unconvincing
• Slow first act takes too long to establish momentum
• Supporting characters are thinly sketched stereotypes
• Film has no coherent perspective on its AI and surveillance themes
• The constant screen-within-screen presentation becomes visually exhausting
• Character development sacrificed for plot mechanics
• Final twists feel convenient rather than earned
• Fails to meaningfully explore implications of its dystopian premise
• Cinematography of physical spaces looks murky and cheap

Final Verdict: A January Release Through and Through

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Mercy earns a rating of 2.5 out of 5 stars, reflecting a film that demonstrates technical competence and occasional innovation while ultimately feeling hollow and disposable. The consensus among critics positions this squarely as a middle-tier genre exercise: watchable enough to not offend, but too shallow and flawed to recommend enthusiastically. It's precisely the kind of movie that January releases have become known for, neither memorably bad nor substantively good.

Fans of Chris Pratt hoping to see him recapture the effortless charm that made him a star will likely come away disappointed, as the role plays to none of his strengths. However, those who appreciate Rebecca Ferguson's work will find her performance the film's most consistently engaging element. Viewers fascinated by the screenlife format and curious to see Bekmambetov push its boundaries into more ambitious visual territory may find enough technical innovation to justify the price of admission, particularly if catching it in the immersive IMAX 3D format for which it was designed.

Thriller enthusiasts looking for a tight, clever mystery will find Mercy serviceable but forgettable, with a plot that telegraphs its turns too obviously and characters too thinly drawn to invest in emotionally. Those hoping for thoughtful exploration of AI ethics, surveillance culture, or the intersection of technology and justice should look elsewhere, as the film raises these issues only to sidestep them in favor of generic plotting.

The film will likely appeal most to undemanding viewers seeking basic entertainment on a cold January weekend, people who want to see something new without particularly caring whether it's memorable. It's perfectly calibrated for audiences who treat theatrical releases as background viewing, something to occupy attention for 100 minutes before being immediately forgotten.

Those who value narrative coherence, character depth, and thematic substance will find Mercy frustratingly empty. Anyone looking for performances that transcend their material or direction that elevates familiar concepts through artistic vision will leave unsatisfied. Viewers allergic to the screenlife aesthetic or exhausted by our current cultural saturation in screens will find this approach grating rather than innovative.

What Mercy ultimately represents is missed potential. The core concept of a cop forced to defend himself before the AI system he championed contains rich dramatic and thematic possibilities. A sharper script could have used this premise to interrogate questions about justice, accountability, and the human costs of efficiency. A more committed performance from Pratt could have made Raven's journey genuinely affecting. A director with a clearer vision could have either leaned into the dystopian satire or fully committed to the mystery-thriller mechanics.

Instead, we get a film that seems content to exist in the middle ground, executing its concept with baseline competence while never pushing toward anything more ambitious. It's the cinematic equivalent of an algorithm generating content designed to meet minimum standards without aspiring to exceed them. In a year that will undoubtedly bring countless films wrestling with AI's implications for society, Mercy feels like an early, superficial entry that will be quickly overshadowed by more thoughtful examinations.

For a movie about the dangers of letting machines make life-or-death decisions, Mercy feels ironically mechanical itself, processed through genre formulas and January-release calculations rather than emerging from genuine creative passion or purpose. It's competent enough to avoid disaster, but that's faint praise for a film tackling ideas that deserve more rigorous engagement. Consider it a mildly diverting time-killer rather than essential viewing.