Time to go to the other side of the spectrum. Earlier this week, we wrote about how one of the best sci-fi movies of the year, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, was coming home. Now, we have news of one of the worst sci-fi movies of the year, Mercy, coming home, too. But, as is often the case with sci-fi, despite reviews, you are always curious, right? You kind of want to see for yourself. So here’s the info.
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), Mercy stars Chris Pratt as a police detective put on trial for the murder of his wife. The twist is that the trial is conducted by an advanced AI (played by Rebecca Ferguson), which he was once fully behind. He then has 90 minutes to use every tool available with the AI to prove his innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. If he doesn’t, he dies. The AI is judge, jury, and executioner. Oh, and he’s strapped to a chair the whole time.
While the film has already been available to watch digitally, the Blu-ray, 4K, and DVD release dates were just announced. It’ll be out on April 7.
It’s a cool premise, for sure, but the end result is apparently less so. It’s got a 25% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience rating is higher at 83%, though, and the press release leans into that, saying, “verified audience reviews call it ‘intense,’ ‘engaging,’ and ‘suspenseful.’” Which sounds great, but if you have to go to fan reviews, it’s rarely a good thing.
And yet, there’s still a curiosity, isn’t there? At times, there’s some delight in watching a movie that kind of stinks. So maybe Mercy is the perfect film to watch for both of those things. Then, by the end of the year, we’ll see where it ranks among the rest of the film’s big sci-fi releases.
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