If Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie was an early contender for funniest comedy of the year, Mercy presents a curious bit of counter-programming: an early contender for the unintentionally funniest comedy of the year.

Leaning on the utterly toothless performance of Chris Pratt, who spends the majority of the movie strapped to a chair, Mercy serves the terrible reputation of January new releases well. In the film, Pratt plays the hero, Chris Raven: a sad-sack homicide detective who has relapsed into alcoholism and is abusive to his wife. After a night he can’t remember, Raven awakes to an experimental AI (which takes on the image of a steely Rebecca Ferguson) being used to adjudicate crime, a literal judge, jury, and execution with unilateral power to kill the accused if the defendant cannot prove reasonable doubt.

In this near future, accused criminals are guilty until proven innocent, and have been stripped of the constitutional right to a jury of one’s peers. Raven, who ironically helped send people to this AI execution chair, now finds himself Continue reading Mercy (2026) Movie Review →