[Movie] MERCY 2026 - WELCOME TO MERCY COURT

Imagine waking up one day, strapped to a chair, and being told that you're on trial for killing someone you love... Now imagine the person judging you isn't a human being but an advanced AI that has already decided how much time you have to prove you're innocent...
Yeah... I'd be panicking too....

That's basically what happens to Chris Raven, played by Chris Pratt... He's a detective living in a near-future Los Angeles where an AI system called Mercy has taken over the justice system.. Raven helped support this system in the past, but now he's suddenly one of its defendants after being accused of murdering his wife and he has just 90 minutes to prove that he didn't do it..

The first part had me hooked...
Raven is trapped in one place, but he isn't completely helpless.. He has access to surveillance footage, phone records, body-camera footage and other digital information, so he has to basically investigate his own murder case while sitting there watching his life fall apart...

Rebecca Ferguson plays Judge Maddox, the AI controlling the trial and I honestly think she was the best part of the movie...

There's something really creepy about watching her calmly explain everything while Raven is basically fighting for his life... She doesn't need to scream or act threatening... The fact that she's so calm actually makes her more unsettling and I liked the little moments where you start wondering whether the AI is really as emotionless and perfect as it claims to be...

Unfortunately, this is where I think Mercy starts losing some of its potential...

The movie has a genuinely interesting question at its center... Can we trust artificial intelligence with something as important as human life?.. That's a serious question.

If an AI can process millions of pieces of information faster than any human judge, does that make it better at deciding someone's guilt? Or does removing human judgment also remove something important about justice?.

The movie touches on these ideas, but I don't think it goes deep enough and that's frustrating because the setup was there.
Instead, the story eventually becomes more of a typical action thriller and once the movie gets to that point, some of the interesting ideas start getting pushed aside for explosions, chasing and twists...

I also had mixed feelings about Chris Pratt...
He's not bad, but this isn't the usual funny, confident Chris Pratt we're used to seeing. Raven is much darker and more desperate, and Pratt does try to sell that side of the character but because he's physically stuck in that chair for so much of the movie, there isn't a huge amount he can actually do..

The biggest problem for me is that Mercy doesn't fully know what kind of movie it wants to be...
Is it an AI thriller?..
A murder mystery?.
A commentary about the justice system?.
An action movie?..
A dystopian sci-fi story?..
It's trying to be all of them, and sometimes it works, but sometimes it feels messy and the ending is probably where I felt that the most..

I won't spoil it, but I wanted something stronger...
After spending the entire movie asking whether AI should be trusted with human lives, I expected the conclusion to really hit me.
Instead, I was just sitting there thinking...
"That's it?"
Still, I wouldn't say I hated Mercy...

There were enough interesting moments to keep me watching, and the central mystery did make me want to find out what really happened..

The movie is also relatively short at around 99 minutes, so at least it doesn't drag on forever and I think that's probably why my feelings toward it are so mixed...

There's a really good movie hiding inside Mercy...
The concept is good...
The mystery is interesting.
The countdown creates tension but the execution doesn't always match the potential.

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Rating: 70/100

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Originally posted through scrobble.life/movies.