What Chris Pratt's AI Thriller 'Mercy' Reveals About Amazon's Real Endgame
The fatal flaw 'War of the Worlds' and 'Mercy' have in common besides the same director.
The year is 2029, and Los Angeles crime has become so unmanageable that the city has thrown up its hands and passed off the judicial system to an artificial intelligence system called Mercy. The catch? Everyone is essentially guilty before their trial-by-AI even starts. If the accused criminal can prove their own innocence—using surveillance video records and digital archives provided by the AI—within 90 minutes, they will be given “mercy” and set free from the death chair they’re locked in during the trial. It’s a compelling AI-in-the-future premise, and it’s what I initially planned to focus on after seeing Mercy. But then I saw the film, and everything changed.
First, let’s give credit where it’s due. Often, the best performances from an actor occur not when they have a massive budget and a brilliantly written script. In reality, some of the best performances take place when talented actors elevate, through sheer force of talent, mediocre material. And that is exactly what Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Terminal List) and Rebecca Ferguson (Dune, Mission: Impossible, Silo) do in this film.
Ferguson as AI Judge Maddox somehow managed to deliver the stoic, alternately mocking tone of a passive-aggressive AI avatar, while slipping in just enough, but not too many, believable moments of AI “emotion” glitches. Similarly, Pratt as Detective Chris Raven manages to carry the film forward with believable character development and urgent plot stakes management, all while sitting in a chair with his arms strapped down. It’s impressive. And it reminded me of what’s possible with theater stage plays, when actors have limited space and almost no special effects to aid their performance. And then it hit me. Mercy also reminded me of another film that tried the same technique, and failed: War of the Worlds, starring Ice Cube.
No, I thought. It can’t be. This cannot be the same director. I searched and, lo and behold, Mercy was indeed helmed by the same director who directed 2025’s super flop, War of the Worlds, Timur Bekmambetov. The film garnered a horrific 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was so bad that it became social media meme fodder for several weeks.
Suddenly, everything made sense. This is Bekmambetov’s thing now. Shooting films that harness our new post-pandemic relationship to remote work and 24/7 screenlife, as he refers to his style of filmmaking. And from a business perspective, the dynamic of reducing a film to a kind of TV-style bottle episode (one primary location), laced with video footage displaying low-cost b-roll, is a major production budget-cutting technique. It’s genius. But it only works if the director really knows what they’re doing.
With War of the Worlds, the budget was reportedly only $10 million, and it showed. Mercy’s budget was roughly $60 million (about the same as 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple), and the increased financial backing shows up in solid special effects, quality b-roll, and set pieces that look like they belong in a serious film. Bekmambetov’s experiment with War of the Worlds may have simply been what Amazon MGM Studios needed in order to give the director a real shot at a major movie, with A-list actors, using the same technique. The opening weekend box office wasn’t great, at just around $11 million domestically, less than even Bone Temple’s $13 million. Technically, the film is a bomb, especially since it was displayed at pricey IMAX theaters and in 3D (two ill-advised choices in my view, since the film’s format doesn’t lend itself to an IMAX experience).
But while professional movie critics gave Mercy a low 22% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences rated it with a robust 81% rating. Bekmambetov has something here. He hasn’t won over the insiders or the box office, but the audiences who do get a look at Mercy are mostly satisfied, which is no small feat.
So what about the AI plot? As I mentioned before, this is a mediocre and not very well thought-out take on AI. You won’t leave the theater pondering deep existential questions raised about AI in the film. At best, it’s a simplistic, “let’s be careful how much control we give to AI systems” story. Decent, but not a film I would put in the pantheon of science fiction films exploring the topic of AI. Instead, the film leans into the human drama and is thematically and at times visually reminiscent (but not anywhere near the same level) of Spielberg’s Minority Report, which did a much better job of making us think about the nature of justice.
Ok, I think I’ve done my best to tell you why seeing this film could be fun, and why the director’s unique approach to filmmaking could have legs in the future. But there’s something that Bekmambetov brought from his last film that I simply cannot let pass: the Amazon product shilling.
One of the biggest critiques against War of the Worlds was how it shamelessly plugged Amazon.com’s online store, effectively making it one long advertisement released by the tech giant’s film studio, Amazon MGM. Thankfully, it’s not as bad in Mercy, but I must report that it does happen again. And it’s quite obvious. Instead of weaving Amazon online shopping into the plot, we’re repeatedly shown giant Ring camera logos, showing off how useful these home surveillance cameras can be if you ever have a break-in or are in some kind of trouble. Amazon purchased the Ring camera startup for $1 billion in 2018. So despite Pratt and Ferguson’s truly admirable work, it turns out that, like Ice Cube, they are basically acting in another Amazon commercial.
To be fair, Meta’s Instagram brand shows up. As does the Axon police body camera brand, often seen on YouTube crime channels. But since showing such brands for social media and police body cameras isn’t usually necessary in major movies (films often just show a generic social media site, and generic body cam footage), the inclusion of those brands almost comes off as if they’re tacked on to justify the repeat appearance of the Ring camera logo and name. Look, synergy isn’t a crime. And it makes sense to cross-market. But when the parent company’s primary mission is to sell things, it might be wise to be extra sensitive to any appearance of prominently hawking your products when you’re trying to sell art and entertainment to the public.
Nevertheless, I’m sure Amazon saw the public’s response to its handling of War of the Worlds and its Amazon.com hyping, so the conspicuous presence of Ring cameras in Mercy tells me the company has no plans to stand down. If Ice Cube, Chris Pratt, and Rebecca Ferguson can be used to high-key peddle Amazon products, then the sky is the limit. The real test will be when Amazon releases its first post-MGM acquisition (for $8.45 billion in 2021) James Bond film, directed by Denis Villeneuve and rumored to be released in 2027 or 2028. Will Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049, Dune, Sicario) also fold and allow Bond to get a transmission from a hostage being streamed from a remote bunker via Twitch, leading him to slip on a pair of Zappos shoes, before finally discovering that the victim is in the basement of his local Whole Foods? It only sounds ridiculous because it hasn’t happened yet.
SPOILER WARNING FOR MERCY
At the end of the film, after Pratt has saved the day, and all is well, the AI asks:
“Chris, what have we done?” Pratt, hugging his movie daughter, looks up at the AI avatar display and says, “We just did what we’re programmed to do, human or AI. We all make mistakes. And we learn.” AI Ferguson looks back and says, “Yes… We do.”
But that hokey dialogue’s seeming whiff of truth rings false here. Amazon made a mistake stuffing its products in War of the Worlds. And I think the company also made a mistake doing the same with Mercy. So no, when we make mistakes, human or algorithm, we don’t always learn. Yet, Amazon still has a chance. There’s still time for the tech giant to read the social media hive mind signals, learn something, and make the right judgment call: keep the infomercials out of their movies, and only in TV and web advertisements, where they belong.
Excellent dissection of the bottle-episode economics. The Ring camera product placement feels especially clumsy given that the entire premis already functions as a cautionary tale about surveillance overreach. Amazon's betting on the audience not connecting those dots. The comparison to Bond is spot on, once Villeneuve's involved the stakes shift from "is this entertaining" to "are we watching craft or commerce."