On M List of Movie Reviews

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Mercury Rising (1998)

Rate: 7
Viewed: 10/14

Mercr
10/14: Starting off inconspicuously well, Mercury Rising sets up Bruce Willis' character as the ousted FBI agent who's scarred by the sight of two idiot teenagers killed in a botched bank robbery scheme.

Then, I'm taken to Chicago to observe a boy with autism cracking a billion-dollar code that came from some obscure puzzle book. Finding out about it, the NSA honcho wants the boy killed because he can't bear the thought of his genius. Finally, the thrilling chase is on as soon as Bruce Willis saves the boy, and we're off to the races afterwards. The longer it goes on, the more I think about how absurd the plot is. Seriously, are you kidding me?

The government is, all of a sudden, threatened by the fact that a nine-year-old boy with autism is able to break the uncrackable supercode, and he should be killed for it? I doubt the kid is dangerous because he has absolutely no idea of what he just did, for Pete's sake. What if the NSA kills him and finds out there's somebody else who can do it, too? Do they kill him? And the next one? Maybe the real question should be: why did the flunkies at the NSA publicly release a code sample, even if the system cost a billion of dollars to create? Worse yet, how can a code system be worth that much? How about...redoing it? Duh!

How the film ended is no surprise. Of course, the good guys win, and the bad guys lose. Bruce Willis does everything as he can to enliven the pace, and he's a good action star. It's shame about Alec Baldwin for not getting enough screen time, appearing in maybe three scenes altogether, because he had the delicious villain part going. And no, Miko Hughes doesn't have autism although he looks familiar, having starred in Pet Sematary and Cops and Robbersons as a wannabe vampire.

All in all, as difficult as it's to swallow the premise, Mercury Rising is an above-average thriller that devotes a chunk of time to the chase of a nine-year-old autistic boy who sits atop the National Security Agency's terrorist list.