'Mercy': Lost in a digital daze

   In the movie Mercy, Rebecca Ferguson portrays a character named Judge Maddox, an AI creation that operates with algorithmic rigidity.

   Mercy benefits from a bit of topicality as it tries to determine whether AI is capable of gathering data, assessing facts, and determining the probability of guilt or innocence faster and better than any jury could. 

    Considering its attempts to be thematically weighty, it's disappointing that Mercy quickly devolves into one more scattershot thriller. A potentially rich premise becomes an excuse for a fragmented, digitally enriched collection of familiar plot elements and intermittent action.

    Shackled to a chair throughout most of the movie, Chris Pratt plays Chris Raven, a Los Angeles cop accused of murdering his wife (Annabelle Wallis). Given 90 minutes to prove his innocence, Raven has access to all the information Mercy, the movie's digital justice system, has gathered.

    Aside from an understandable desire to avoid execution after his 90 minutes expire, Raven wants to convince his teenage daughter (Kylie Rogers) that he didn't murder her mother.

    Director Timur Bekmambetov, working from a screenplay by Marco van Belle, uses Raven's agitated inquiries to weave his way through segments that provide hurried tours of Raven's troubled marriage, his alcoholism, and his troubles with anger management. 

     The plot also loads up on red herrings, introducing the possibility of massive damage thanks to stolen chemicals, a potential bomb attack, and the revenge-seeking suspects who populate an overly complicated plot.

    Mercy unfolds in a near future that includes flying motorcycles and assorted techno junk. A crime-riddled Los Angeles has been divided into sectors where the city's law-abiding residents are separated from those who might threaten them. Just what we needed, more dystopia.

     Watching the immobilized Pratt act from a chair from which Raven sees the judge and the projections the system shows him eventually becomes repetitive. Most of the time, Raven seems to be sifting through evidence to prove his innocence. It almost feels as if he's watching the same movie we are -- only he squirms more than we do.

    Themes about the oppositional struggle between AI and humans are swallowed by a plot that relies on a surfeit of twists that feel arbitrarily introduced during the movie's third act, which suggests that maybe humanity and AI can coexist.

    Neither gut instinct nor logical rigor is required to conclude that Mercy, which moves quickly through its 100-minute running time, squanders its chance to be taken seriously.