2/12 ForReel Score | 1/5 Stars

January–colloquially known as ‘Dumpuary’–is typically the month where studio films go to die. 2026, however, has the potential to be different. Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple proved that a January release date isn't a guaranteed death sentence, and Sam Raimi’s long-awaited return to horror, Send Help, has the potential to be an exciting return to form for the filmmaker. That said, the Dumpuary curse isn't exactly broken, either. Isaac Newton once said that “every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” and that couldn't be more true in the case of Timur Bekmambetov’s latest sci-fi thriller, Mercy. A screenlife film in the vein of last year's War of the Worlds pseudo-adaptation see, Mercy is already a strong contender for what could be the worst movie of 2026.

Bekmambetov first made waves with Wanted, a trashy action-thriller based on Mark Millar’s comic series of the same name. Abrasive, loud, and stupid by every metric, Wanted cemented Bekmambetov as a poor taste and B-movie auteur, a reputation Bekmambetov would only double down on with films like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and a Ben-hur remake, which were both total flops. A pioneer in the subgenre, Bekmambetov went on to produce multiple screenlife films such as Searching, Unfriended, and War of the Worlds, all of which take place on a computer screen. Bekmambetov tried his hand at it with the 2018 ISIS recruitment thriller Profile to minor success, but he's going for broke with Mercy – unfortunately.

About once a year, we are lucky enough to witness a movie so dumb that the viewing experience starts to feel like carbon monoxide has leaked into the theater (2025’s A Minecraft Movie and War of the Worlds were sights to behold), and Mercy is no exception. Strapped to a chair for 90 minutes, Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) has to prove his innocence to an AI judge (Rebecca Ferguson) after being accused of murdering his wife. If this sounds like a familiar concept, that's because it’s like if someone threw Minority Report and The Fugitive into a blender, but with weightless action, abysmal dialogue, and hilariously dubious politics. Traces of surveillance state, “Big Brother is watching you” commentary clash with ridiculous plot threads of police brutality and systemic injustice, as Mercy expects you to sympathize with the system’s purveyors while also criticizing said system.

There was a time where Chris Pratt was a reliably comedic supporting player in Moneyball, Her, and even Bekmambetov’s Wanted (keyboard smash scene is still an all-timer), but Pratt’s thrown all that goodwill away to become a poor man’s Tom Cruise. Pratt’s Chris Raven is indistinguishable from any other Pratt action hero aside from Guardians of the Galaxy’s Star-Lord, but without the boyish charm. The only dissonance between Mercy and the other Chris Pratt action heroes is that he's an enormous piece of shit in this movie. He's physically and psychologically abusive to his wife, and yet we're supposed to empathize with him? That's not even to mention Mercy’s “we all make mistakes” message, which asserts that humans and AI aren't so different after all: not exactly the message we should be putting out in the world right now.

On the other side of the interrogation room (which is literally just a big techno-chair in a poorly-greenscreened soundstage) is Judge Maddox, played by Rebecca Ferguson in a performance so stilted that it does an injustice to such a great actor. I’ve grown to love the energy Ferguson brings to films like the Mission: Impossible franchise, Doctor Sleep, and Dune, but she's barely given anything to work with in Mercy. It's a clear-cut case of “the actors aren't in the same room”-itis, and Bekmambetov’s screenlife aesthetic makes Mercy feel like a high-budget Zoom performance rather than a $60 million blockbuster. Barely anybody is in the same room when they're talking to each other, with most dialogue scenes taking place over FaceTime. Nearly every spoken word is at its corniest, and each emotional beat was met with raucous laughter in my screening.

Science fiction has always been an avenue to explore real-world problems and examine them in heightened contexts, but Mercy has no intention of provoking any iota of coherent thought. Sci-fi cop films like Deja Vu actually take the time to properly tackle post-Patriot Act policing while contextualizing their respective diegesises, whereas Mercy gives you a five-minute exposition dump before dropping you headfirst into Minority Report by way of the bargain bin (why is this in theaters while Joe Carnahan’s The Rip goes to Netflix?). It's not smart enough to evoke meaningful conversation, and it's not dumb enough to warrant the “dumb fun” moniker, either. My friend and I were certainly engaged during the movie, but in the same way one would be while watching a car crash in slow motion.

Not often does a film manage to fail on all fronts, but that's what makes Mercy so memorably atrocious. It's a film best shared with friends, almost genetically engineered to be made fun of while hanging out with your buddies; the only legacy this movie could possibly have is that of a drinking game or a short-lived internet meme. Since this is already projected to be a box office bomb (much like Bekmambetov’s previous work), I'm sure Mercy will find itself a comfortable home on Instagram Reels.

Movie Review: "Mercy" Shows No Mercy As Bekmambetov Butchers Thriller Filmmaking