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| MERCURY RISING (1998) - R
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SBD Star Rating:
by Lew Irwin
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Stephen Holden in the New York Times figures that the smirk on Bruce Willis' face in Mercury Rising is a way of acknowledging "that the star knows that we know that what's happening on the screen is just a crock." Steve Murray in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls the movie "a gray, tired and joyless Bruce Willis vehicle that makes The Jackal look like a classic." Jay Carr in the Boston Globe observes that by submerging the story of an idiot-savant child who is able to crack a top government code into a "standard genre" action film, the filmmakers miss "the far larger and more interesting implications of a nation of bright kids sitting at their keyboards, making fools of what had until now been the priesthood of sentinels keeping the nation's secrets." But commenting on what he claims is the plot's implausibility, Steven Rea in The Philadelphia Inquirer notes that in one scene a librarian breaks into the FBI files "as easily as if she were doing a search for a book on stupid movies." And Jack Mathews, writing for Newsday and the Los Angeles Times (whose chief film critic was denounced by Titanic writer-director James Cameron), "If James Cameron wants to convince people what a fine writer he is, he should offer Mercury Rising as a comparison. Next to this, Titanic is Dostoevsky." However, Philip Wuntch in the Dallas Morning News concludes, "Although the plot definitely follows a formula ... the film is the work of a mature craftsman." |
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