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It’s rare to experience quite so fast a rush of responses as Alasdair Stuart did with the trailer for Mercy. The new movie from always interesting director Timur Bekmambetov, it stars Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson, the first as a cop who rolled out the world’s first A.I. justice system and the second as the A.I. judge trying him. Here’s what he saw.

0.05 – Oh hey Chris

Well, that’s definitely Chris Pratt. Whether we get Star-Lord Chris Pratt or Terminal List Chris Pratt is something we’ll be finding out together.

0.14 – Crying

This is an interesting beat. He’s crying, and we don’t see him crying in the run up to this. I wonder just how long this sequence is and what he learns.

0.14 – Rebecca Ferguson!

Rebecca Ferguson! Always fun to see and a neat. and necessary counter balance to Hardest to Like Chris.

0.21 – The Mercy System

Okay, we’re getting a little dystopian in some fun ways. Note the facial scan which is interesting. Are they confirming it’s really him? And, coupled with the odd transition we see earlier with the suspiciously long haired figure in the chair, the question becomes… how long has he been in prison? And does he know?

0.26 – Hover bike

When is this set? We see that LAPD hover bike a couple of times and it’s a nice combination of plausible and fantastic.

0.50 – Murder of your wife

Good Lord, really? Really? We’re at the end of 2025, and somehow ‘My dead wife’ is a motivation that still gets cheques signed? My God.

0.54 – Guilt-o-meter

The Guilt percentage is a lovely idea and honestly the visuals are uniformly impressive and fun. It seems like this is basically a ‘guy in a chair’ movie which make sense from a budget and Covid safety point of view and I’m impressed with the visual wit they’ve found with that.

But also… this is a justice system where you have 90 minutes to prove your innocence or they just KILL YOU?! And this was perfected by one middle aged LAPD detective?! WHY?! HOW?!

1.10 – Real time?

Is this unfolding in real time? Because that’s very, very cool.

1.18 – Chris Raven

Oh COME ON. Seriously? An actor sharing a name with a character isn’t great but Chris Raven? Was Detective Chris Eagle taken?

1.42 – Really?

Seriously? So that’s murdered wife, pretty heavily implied cop-a-ganda, Chris Raven and now the one person of colour we see isn’t just apparently a villain but also has a criminal record? I’m hopeful (desperate?) that there’s more to him than that, but this trailer is making that trust very hard work.

2.09 – Smile

This is why you hire Rebecca Ferguson. That switch, from smile to back and the ambiguous but definitive threat coming off her in waves is amazing.

2.14 – The Anarchist Cookbook

I really, badly want to believe this is an indicator that something is badly wrong with what (sigh) Detective Chris Raven is seeing. The Anarchist’s Cookbook was a bellwether for conspiracy theorists for years, and was originally written to protest the Vietnam War.  It’s an active book, and a major factor in at least one conviction this year.

But.

It’s 2025. Why does someone have a hard copy of it? And if they do, how does it look so neat? Do they have post it notes in case they forget their petrol bomb recipes?

God I want this to be a visual clue to something much more interesting. God I’m worried this is a script that’s already made at least two lazy choices making a third.

2.31 – Hardcore Henry

The first-person sequence towards the end is pretty interesting and looks very similar to Hardcore Henry from 2015. The debut of Ilya Naishuller, it’s a first person cyberpunk sprint through increasingly unhinged action scenes. Bekmambetov was a producer on it and it’s a fun ride, even if it’s as subtle as a kick in the teeth. If this movie has half that movie’s energy, it’s hopefully going to have enough to jump over the rough spots.

Mercy is released January 23rd 2026 next year. I really hope it’s good. We’ll see.