Mercury Rising

But the real treat is seeing Big Daddy Bruce playing the papa bear part to the little lost boy. Sure, he loves his handgun, but for once Willis seems to enjoy his nurturing side as much as his Glock 19. [3 Apr 1998, p.N53]

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. Read full review

One of those good video movies that should do decent box office based on the drawing power of the stars. It helps that there's a fair amount of suspense and some decent gunplay, but there's not much reason to see it on the big screen unless you just love that over-used "whup-whup" sound effect of rotating helicopter blades. Read full review

Every time the kid looks at a field of numbers and symbols that start jiggling across a screen to clicky music, but not jiggling as fast as his brain, he's exiling the kind of hero played by Willis to the scrapheap of history. [3 Apr 1998, p.D10]

Mercury Rising could have been a terrific movie with a little more gumption. [3 Apr 1998, p.G5]

And in spite of all that predictability, there is enough action, tension and Willis-like funny lines to earn this movie a passing grade. [2 Apr 1998, p.41]

A better-than-average thriller. That's a tribute to director Harold Becker and stars Bruce Willis and Alec Baldwin, who stretch the script's one idea almost to its breaking point. [3 Apr 1998, p.8E]

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. Read full review

The film is based on Ryne Douglas Peardon's novel Simple Simon, which I haven't read. I can only hope it's less exploitive of people with autism than Mercury Rising is. For all the filmmakers' apparent efforts to treat the issue with sensitivity (there are teachers and nurses who patiently explain to Willis the various symptoms, the behavioral patterns of autistic children), the issue has no place in a standard-issue Hollywood thriller. It feels like a gimmick, and a shameless one at that. [3 Apr 1998, p.03]

And though young Miko Hughes does a fine job as the traumatized Simon, this ain't no "Rainboy". [3 Apr 1998, p.SE]

Standard action fare with a false overlay of social conscience. [3 Apr 1998, p.A]

An anemic time-waster you've seen before that fails to create tension or generate the suspense this genre cries out for. Read full review

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. Read full review

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. Read full review

A brutal and preposterous action movie about a guy, a kid and a secret code. And a whole lotta shattering glass.

Hugely expensive, weakly formulaic. Read full review

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. Read full review

Not quite loud enough to be a seasonal blockbuster, Mercury Rising is instead more of a dull thud on the action film map, fodder for Willis fanatics, and not much else. Read full review

The nuttiest thing about Mercury Rising is that when Alec Baldwin, as the silky-voiced evil defense honcho, explains that he took his cutthroat actions to protect the lives of American undercover agents, he actually sounds quite reasonable. You can just about feel the imbecility rising. Read full review

Baldwin's Kudrow is a one-dimensional, humorless variation on his corporate tyrant in "Glengarry Glen Ross." When the writers attempt to add color -- like with a female office worker who blathers about caffeine and Bart Simpson -- the results induce cringing. [3 Apr 1998, p.A]

Willis has a gift for turning formulaic action flicks -- Die Hard, even Hudson Hawk -- into something with an identifiable personality, but much of Mercury Rising challenges even his charms. [3 Apr 1998, p.C5]

Contrived, slapdash and utterly false, this action thriller with a cynically soft center exemplifies the worst end-product of contemporary Hollywood formulas. Read full review

Past an impressive siege opening, everything in this `thriller' is terrible: the action, the supposed tension, the dialogue and the plot. Every opportunity to make it good is missed. Read full review

Unpleasant would be the word for Mercury Rising if "tired" weren't a more appropriate one. Read full review

The actors' serious faces are out of place in this hopelessly silly action conspiracy. Read full review