Synopsis
Renegade FBI agent Art Jeffries protects a nine-year-old autistic boy who has cracked the government's new "unbreakable" code.
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Cast
- Bruce WillisArt Jeffries
- Alec BaldwinNicholas Kudrow
- Miko HughesSimon Lynch
- Chi McBrideTommy B. Jordan
- Kim DickensStacey
- Robert StantonDean Crandell
- Bodhi ElfmanLeo Pedranski
- Carrie PrestonEmily Lang
- Lindsey GinterPeter Burrell
- Peter StormareShayes
Recommendations
- 75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mercury Rising is a Bruce Willis action movie, which means that most of us know what it will be like going in, and the only question is whether it's a good one or a lousy one. Answer: This is a good one. - 50
Chicago Sun-Times
Here are the two most obvious problems that sentient audiences will have with the plot. (1) Modern encryption cannot be intuitively deciphered, by rainmen or anyone else, without a key. And, (2) If a 9-year-old kid can break your code, don't kill the kid, kill the programmers. - 40
Empire
An anemic time-waster you've seen before that fails to create tension or generate the suspense this genre cries out for. - 40
Variety
Mercury Rising won't raise many viewers' temperatures. A somber suspenser with an oddly disconnected assortment of characters and a lack of freshly conceived action, this tale of a maverick FBI agent who takes on malevolent government forces to protect an orphaned autistic child serves up some dramatic moments but never legitimately convinces. - 40
Washington Post
In Mercury Rising, the mercury may rise but pulses never do. A promising thriller with tough guy Bruce Willis wearing an ever-more radiant tapestry of bruises on his face, the film ultimately surrenders to the entropy of stale plotting and familiar formula. - 30
The New York Times
Hugely expensive, weakly formulaic. - 30
Time Out
John Barry's score, with its reiterated 'autistic kid' theme, would have sounded corny to Ivor Novello, though it's in keeping with the general principle of patronising the audience. - 20
TV Guide Magazine
Contrived, slapdash and utterly false, this action thriller with a cynically soft center exemplifies the worst end-product of contemporary Hollywood formulas.
