paulclaassen How professionals in the industry could concoct such an unconvincing film is completely beyond me! Nothing in this film makes sense. A billion-dollar code hidden in a Puzzle magazine for kids - come on!! The things the characters do in the film is so pathetically dumb. There were just so many flaws and terrible coincidences that I would write a short story if I were to highlight them all, so enough said! This was simply awful!

deatman9 This movie is nothing special but it surely worth more then a measly 5.6. The acting is good and the idea is new and original so I don't know why everyone hated it so much. It had a good story line and some decent action scenes so I was pleasantly surprised by this one.This movie is about a FBI agent who is sent to protect an autistic boy who is a target of assassins after accidentally cracking a top secret government code.I don't know why everybody hated this movie so much I actually thought it was pretty good. It was nothing special but in my eyes it was worth a watch no doubt.

Robert W. This was Bruce Willis at his finest. Although Mercury Rising was financially not well received, the film is a terrific thriller, solid acting, great story and just all around entertaining! One reviewer said this was more of a drama about autism and that's ludicrous. This is a thriller about a young boy who happens to have autism but to call this a drama or about autism at all is misleading. The film is part mystery, part thriller, part action and will entertain from beginning to end. Powerful performances from the lead cast make it worthwhile and riveting.Bruce Willis plays Art Jeffries and does a great job doing what he does best. No this isn't an award worthy performance or anything outstanding for Willis but he still carries the film well and Willis fans, like myself, will remember this. The star and stand out performance of this film is Miko Hughes who brilliantly plays autistic puzzle solver Simon. His performance is award worthy and I've always remembered it as one of my favorite performances. His chemistry with Willis is brilliant. Robert Stanton deserves mention in a small but pivotal role that I really enjoyed him in. Same could be said for Chi McBride who also does a good job. Alec Baldwin is good in his role as the villain. I would have liked a little more chemistry between him and Willis and I don't think he was outstanding in his role but he was definitely good. Kim Dickens is the female lead in the film and she does alright although I found her character very one dimensional for the most part.Harold Becker's direction is perhaps a little bland from time to time. It is true what some reviewers say that the film could have used just a little more action and some of the performances felt dry at times from Baldwin and Dickens, who are important to the entire film in many ways. Still the concept for the film is riveting and the story is delivered in a well paced, entertaining fashion. Anyone looking for a good thriller will not be steered wrong with this film. Its a movie that I watch from time to time again and again because I've always thought it was a great movie. Plenty of thrills, plenty of edge of your seat moments and a terrific performance from Hughes. 8.5/10

Benjamin Cox For reasons that I can't explain, this has been on my "Must See" list for ages. I really don't know why - Bruce Willis action movies aren't exactly rare beasts and at some point, I figured that this had a plot that offered something a little different. Sadly, it turns out that it really wasn't worth the wait. It lacks the bluster of your usual Willis blockbuster and the story that I had high hopes for quickly finds itself becoming a gimmick.Willis plays FBI agent Art Jeffries, an undercover specialist who finds himself demoted to monitoring radio transmissions after a botched hostage assignment. However, he quickly finds himself assigned to look for a missing child - Simon Lynch (Miko Hughes) who is an autistic nine-year orphaned after his parents are murdered. But Art quickly finds threat there is more to it than that - Simon had accidentally cracked a top secret code after it inexplicably appeared in the pages of a puzzle magazine and was being sought by NSA operatives led by the gravel-voiced Nick Kudrow (Alec Baldwin) and his murderous colleague Peter Burrell (Lindsey Ginter).Being an odd hybrid of espionage thriller and fugitive actioner, "Mercury Rising" successfully manages to be neither. The action is satisfying enough when it turns arrive in fits and starts but there is an awful lot of dialogue to get through in-between. Willis can pretty much sleepwalk through these kinda movies and sure enough, he simply doesn't engage you enough to care. He's also completely shown up by his young co-star as Hughes is brilliantly and genuinely heart-wrenching as the tortured savant. However, the worst actor by far is Baldwin who seems to be eerily foreshadowing his portrayal in "Team America: World Police". At times, he's simply appalling as he mumbles his way through his lines as though paying tribute to Michael Madsen. Maybe it was he who distracted me from the story which seemed confusing and never really explained what was happening. For example, imagine you are an experienced FBI agent looking after an infant suspect. Would you happily hand the care of the child over to a complete stranger in a café (played here by Kim Dickins) while you popped off to meet an informant because I'm not sure I would."Mercury Rising" is annoyingly wasteful of its promising set-up, failing to deliver either a decent action movie or a gripping chase flick. It seems curiously restrained, as though it can't be bothered to be the nail-biting gripper it seems to aspire to. Maybe I'm being harsh on it given how long I've waited to watch it but for me, "Mercury Rising" is just as generic and forgettable as any other Nineties action flick. Shame, shame, shame.