Tag: Annabelle Wallis

[EXPRESSO] Mercy (2026) | One Amazon Ring To Judge Them All

I’ll give director Timur Bekmambetov this: he does not lack tenacity, kickstarting the “screenlife” type of films with Unfriended back in 2015 and sticking to it to this day.

After the “so bad it’s good” Amazon commercial-crapfest that was his 2025 War Of The Worlds, we now have Mercy, a sci-fi thriller set in a distopic future where, to curb the criminality rates skyrocketing, the government and police concocted a new system to dole out justice: an IA program, Mercy, which basically acts a judge, jury and executioner.

One day a veteran police officer wakes up to find himself strapped to a chair and being a subject of the Mercy program, accused of killing his wife, with the IA giving him access to various databases, telephone records, private social media accounts, to try and defend himself from the accusation, by lowering a “guilty” probability rate via proving his arguments, all in 90 minutes, before he gets executed via sonic blast when time runs out.

It’s basically an attempt at a modern take on Minority Report in screenlife fashion, and it’s actually kinda okay? For once, it manages to not entirely take place via holograms and sci-fi screens from where a bound Chris Pratt has to investigate remotely, it’s kinda compelling and unlike War Of The Worlds 2025, it’s actually competent enough to engage the viewer and entertain enough, despite it also being fairly mediocre,

It’s also not really well written and the more you think about the plot points the more shaky they become, plus it’s also gross propaganda, given it’s a sci-fi film allegedly warning about the danger of leaving the judicial system to IA and algorhythms, but also promoting as the only solution a survellaince state (no qualms about the ethics of zero privacy), an Amazon sponsored one.

[EXPRESSO] Malignant (2021) | Downright Malevolent

New horror movie with James Wan actually involved in writing the script? I am SO in.

This time we have the story of Madison, a woman haunted by the visions of horrible murders that aren’t just scarring waking nightmares, but do happen in reality, and she’s just forced to witness them as they take place, by some mysterious force.

Worse, Madison also becomes aware of who is acting them out, as the name or her imaginary friend from childhood, Gabriel, rings again and unlocks her suppressed memories, letting her know he was not imaginary, after all.

Of course, there’s more, and from Wan you would expect a big, excellent twist lying in wait…. and OF COURSE i’m not spoiling it here. I mean, you do expect it, but in a good way, and it doesn’t disappoint. You think you could somehow predict it somewhat… until you don’t, and out loud say “holy shit” as the actual twist unfolds, and things get more grotesque as more is revealed.

What i can say is that it’s not a demon-possession thing, there’s no reincarnation of old evil spirits or any of that, it’s actually – mostly, anyway – a lot more grounded in disgusting reality, with some concessions (like some very foggy scenes or an old castle clearly showing Wan’s love for the classics) that ultimately make the whole angle a lot more entertaining and creepy.

I could say more, make some comparisons, but i fear accidentally giving hints, and this is a movie that you would like to go in as “blind” as you can, even if it’s quite good and doesn’t rely entirely on the twist itself, there’s good acting, some good drama, and a marvelous combo of Wan’s direction and scriptwriting that does not disappoint.

Just go see it. GO!