Mercy

Although I'm not strapped into the chair that Chris Pratt spends 90% of MERCY in, I have to admit that I went into this movie ready to quip, "Yeah, I saw this when it was called 'Minority Report'!

While it never nears the superiority of that Cruise/Spielberg classic, damned if this one isn't a whole lot of fun, packed with suspense, humor and buckets of action.

Pratt plays Detective Chris Raven, a decorated officer and one of the champions of the near future virtual court called Mercy. If you are found committing a crime and the evidence shows a very high probability of guilt, you forgo all pre-trialcrap and go right to a very heavy chair. If you can convince the AI Judge that you are innocent in 90 minutes, you walk. If you can't, the chair offers up a swift execution at minute 91. Pretty efficient.

Does this mean no more jury duty? I'm in!

Building off the floating screens that Spielberg and team introduced in "Minority Report", the chair sits in the middle of a room, in front of an IMAX sized screen. Your AI Judge (Jury & Executioner) gives you access to ALL the data you can imagine. And in THIS near future, nothing is private, including full access to all phones, cameras and intel in the entire city of Los Angeles.

Our AI magistrate for the 90 minute trial is Judge Maddox, played by Rebecca Ferguson (The Greatest Showman, Dune, Mission Impossible) who manages to have some fun, even though this is the rare role of hers I've ever seen that didn't involve some serious stunt work.

As the film opens, Raven wakes up, hungover in the chair, accused of killing his wife. He's so intoxicated that he can't remember anything, but as the filmed evidence is presented, even he begins to question his innocence.

Pratt is so good at playing an everyman that it's nice to see him play a more flawed character. Raven is a hell of a cop, but he's also off the wagon and not a great husband or Father.

Director Timur Bekmambetov, who helmed the vastly underrated "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer" and Angelina Jolie's action thriller "Wanted", brings a lot of visual style to the film, especially in IMAX 3D. He basically sticks you in that chair with Pratt, with a countdown clock hanging in the air to your upper right and screens buzzing all around you at a rapid pace.

Once Pratt shakes off his shock and begins investigating the crime with every asset at his disposal, the film really kicks into a gear that never lets up until the final moments.

Those assets at his disposal include his current partner Jaq (Kali Reis from "True Detective") and his friend and AA Sponsor Rob, well played by Chris Sullivan from "This Is Us".

Raven proves to be a hell of a detective and the film builds off its roots as a standard police procedural, pulled into a dazzling near future 21st Century.

I also loved the way the film sets up a modern day Los Angeles as an Escape from New York-lite, with sections of LA cordoned off into red zones that offer nothing but riots, drugs and death. The fact that Santa Monica and Beverly Hills are two of those red zones are just a couple flashes of the humor that Behmambetov and his creative team weave into the film.

The action scenes are huge scale, well shot and the finale through the streets of downtown LA is a big budget action thrill. I'm thinking if I can already get my Amazon packages by drone, that it can't be long before the police do have flying motorcycles. It's one hell of a way to beat LA traffic!

Pratt's great, weaving terror, shock, grief and humor into his 90 minutes in the chair. He's perfectly cast here.

I came into MERCY expecting a rip-off and left very pleasantly surprised. It's a pure B-movie popcorn action thriller with a big budget and a solid mystery at its core. Visually arresting and suspenseful, my verdict is a surprising B.

Didn't see that coming....