Mercury Rising

Starring: Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Miko Hughes, Chi McBride, Kim Dickens, Robert Stanton, Peter Stormare, John Carroll Lynch, Bodhi Elfman
Directed by: Harold Becker
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
1998

Times Seen:
Tim: 2

Summary: An FBI agent (Bruce Willis) must protect a young autistic boy (Miko Hughes) who cracked the government's top secret code from shadowy government agents who want him dead.

Review:

Tim: I remember going to see Mercury Rising in the theater in 1998, and being pretty excited about it. I was still young, but definitely a Bruce Willis fan. I remember being very disappointed in the film- it's not that it was terrible, but it was just a very average, "blah" kind of film. I was so disappointed that it took me 15 years to watch it for the second time. In my younger days, I didn't know nearly as much about movies as I know now- but I knew an underwhelming movie when I saw one.

This film is just poorly made and far too forgettable. There's nothing especially exciting or memorable about anything in this film. I remember bits and pieces of it, but stretches of the film almost immediately vanished from my mind. Director Harold Becker gives us a movie that just kind of plods along. There's never any horrible moments, but there's nothing to engage the audience, either. There's really no highs or lows- just this meandering, average movie. This is the kind of film that makes me just shrug my shoulders and say, "I guess it was okay." Movies should inspire something in us- whether that's excitement, fear, suspense, tears- something, anything. This film does none of that. It tells a story just barely engaging enough to keep us from turning it off. That is certainly not much of an achievement.

I really like Bruce Willis, but I didn't love his performance here. Some of that is due to the weak script. Some of it, though, feels like he suspected this was going to be a forgettable movie, so he just phoned in the performance a bit. It's not always noticeable, but I have a hard time believing Willis gave his all to this film. I didn't especially care for Alec Baldwin. He felt miscast to me. His performance is far too one-dimensional, and I never really got him here. This film needed a powerful villain, and Baldwin does not deliver. That is likely one of the big reasons why I was disappointed with this film.

The action scenes are similarly lackluster. There's the scene on the train, which has a moment or two of excitement, but is over way too soon. There's the climax of the film, which felt rushed and ineffective. There may have been other moments of action in the film, but honestly, they are so forgettable that I am having trouble recalling any that are even worth mentioning.

Look, you can do far worse than Mercury Rising. It has Bruce Willis, features a fairly strong performance by Miko Hughes, and is at least somewhat different (it's not every day you watch a movie about the government trying to kill a little autistic boy because he cracked their top secret code). This isn't a terrible movie at all- it's just a thoroughly average movie in every sense. That is never a good thing. Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Domestic Disturbance, The Kid, The Siege