3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Mercy

2026, Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch) -- download

Weird. I have a fuzzy memory of saying out loud, "I wonder was Bekmambetov is up to these days...." but its not in any post and I don't recall the context. I haven't seen any of his since the failed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I guess he's been on the other side of the pond for the most part.

Despite coming from two entirely different studios, Universal and Amazon MGM, this movie, made by the latter, plays like it grew from the same Purple Suited Minds responsible for the recent War of the Worlds. It is a barely-above-middling crime thriller which is dragged into the muck by an absolute terrible visual depiction of technology, and this is coming from the guy who absolutely loves interface design focused movies. Most of the near-future flick looks like it was designed on a MacBook (likely it was) by a person who hasn't seen a non-MacOS computer since Windows 3.1.

And I was not hallucinating. Its right there in Timur's Producer credits -- and if you look through his producing credits, you see an inordinate number of movies that take place in front of a screen, such as "Unfriended: Dark Web" (2018) and "Profile" (2018). I just wish he was better at it.

This was an astoundingly bad movie, so much so I even considered not finishing it. But if I persevered through War of the Worlds then in for a penny, in for a pounding. I also wondered, as the opening "explainer vid" rolled, whether this was a MAGA Movie, i.e. something meant for the minds of the Republican / Right-Wing mindset in the US these days. The premise is that In the Future, when crime is at an all time high, they decide to implement an AI Judge as part of the "Mercy Court". The AI is "judge, jury and executioner" (without Dredd's cool helmet) and it has access to all information, all of it, giving the defendant 90 minutes to prove their innocence before being put to death. The assumption is that the only people standing "trial" here have been convicted by the evidence itself. Guilty until proven innocent, but by only your own aptitude.

No issues there.

Chris Raven (sounds like he chose his own character name; Chris Pratt, Parks and Recreation) wakes up, strapped to the chair. Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson, Dune) explains to him that he killed his wife. But of course Raven doesn't think he did it, but cannot deny that he got blackout drunk and was abusively enraged at her, and she, wife that is, thought he was entirely capable of doing it. But he didn't do it, did he, cuz he's the main character.

Except the movie does kind of lead us down a garden path that Chris is a violent, narcissistic ass who is more than capable of doing it. I am not recapping the movie, but you know he didn't do it. He's Been Framed by his Best Friend, because, of course he has been. We are here to talk about how bad the movie is written, depicted and presented, not to debate "plot".

And we are here to do lots of "air quotes".

The methods in which the accused convinces Maddox that they are innocent are by accessing all the data made possible by her really sus methods of access. Don't trust AI, that is not at all considered a sentient AI as this is not that movie, but we are supposed to trust the surveillance state? She can literally access anything. She doesn't require warrants. The Mercy Court gives her this level of power.

But she sucks. She's not all that different than current AIs that are prone to being led by the nose to the wrong conclusions. If a human misrepresents the data available, then the data is corrupted. That might kind of be the point of the movie, but you always get the impression the agenda of the movie really likes the idea of an AI killing off scumbags, as long as other scumbag humans (likely Lefties) don't interfere with it.

But still, I should like a computer thriller full of interface screens, right? Yes, I should but we now know how Bekmambetov low balls even that idea. Like in War of the Worlds all the screens are social media, fly away file folders, video feeds, etc. that entirely look like someone is recreating them with software. Like mentioned prior, the designers used MacOS with its current rounded edges & smoked glass backgrounds but also made the usual terrible mistake of depicting other computers as if you would see their data from their screen. If I remotely access a MacBook from my Windows laptop, the screens I will see will be Windows screens, the data does not affect the depiction. But sure, visual cues to help technologically incapable audiences. 

And Maddox "herself". I am sure there is some low-key sexism or reverse sexism going on here, but having Rebecca Ferguson playing the fallible AI judge. I mean, I know that in a movie with limited cast, they need a contrasting recognizable face to Pratt's, but there definitely is some "cannot trust a woman" going on. And some side-eye glances about how AI's are not supposed to have emotions, yet near the end of the movie, she starts making "emotional choices". Once Eagle Raven's evidence-against starts proving to have been fabricated or falsified, and Time is Running Out, she begins taking matters into her own "hands" (screens) to help him. All they needed was one moment in the script where they talked about the AI being on the edge of sentience, maybe hobbled by scared technicians, and they would have some thin explanation as to why this non-sentient, non-gendered computer program would start making choices based on emotional situations. But no, nobody making this movie believes any audience cares about intelligent choices. Maybe my initial thoughts of this being a MAGA movie were validated purely by the expected intelligence levels of the viewers? Yeah yeah, cheap shot but...

Anywayz, I will just be here waiting for a real AI to help write a script and actually help with the visual graphics of the next interface focused technology movie. I know such depictions are possible and they are really good despite my quibbles with the whole AI industry.