Chris Pratt’s AI Thriller Has a Strong Setup but Never Fully Breaks Through

On paper, Mercy has the kind of hook that should be hard to mess up. A detective wakes up accused of murdering his wife, the evidence is stacked against him, and he has just 90 minutes to convince an AI judge not to end his life. It is a tight, high-stakes premise with plenty of room for paranoia, moral tension, and the kind of futuristic dread sci-fi thrillers live on.

The problem is that Mercy never feels as sharp as its setup. The movie keeps hinting at bigger ideas about surveillance, automated justice, and the danger of handing human decisions over to machines, but it rarely digs into them in a meaningful way. Instead, it leans hard on urgency and style, hoping momentum can carry material that often feels thinner than it should.

Chris Pratt does what he can with a role that asks him to sell panic, guilt, and confusion while spending much of the film boxed into a limited space. He is solid enough, but the part does not give him a lot of room to really surprise anyone. Rebecca Ferguson, on the other hand, brings a colder and more intriguing energy to the film. Even when the script gets clunky, she gives the story some needed weight and makes the AI judge feel like more than just a gimmick.

Visually, the movie has a slick digital look that fits the premise, and there are moments where that style works. You can feel the pressure of the clock, the constant presence of screens, and the way technology turns every private moment into evidence. But the film also has a habit of feeling trapped by its own concept. What should come across as tense and contained sometimes just feels repetitive. The more Mercy explains itself, the less interesting it becomes.

That is really the frustration of the whole thing. There is a better movie hiding inside this one. The idea is timely, the cast is capable, and there are flashes of a smarter thriller that could have said something unsettling about where justice and technology are heading. Instead, Mercy settles for being mildly entertaining when it should have been unsettling, urgent, and memorable.

It is not a total misfire, and viewers who just want a fast-moving sci-fi mystery may still get something out of it. But for a movie built around such a strong premise, Mercy leaves behind the feeling that it should have hit much harder than it does.