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Excitement is building for the release of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie on April 1. The trailers are full of game-accurate detail, the posters hint that there could be a Super Smash Bros. crossover in the future, and if it's anything like the first movie, we should brace ourselves for considerable box office success, too.
However, there's a good reason why I still can't muster up much enthusiasm for it, and it's do to with Chris Pratt. His Mario voice is all kinds of wrong, and if I could change anything about the Nintendo franchise, it would be Pratt's involvement.
Article continues belowWhy you need to stream AI movie Mercy on Prime Video this week
I'm talking about Mercy, the January flop that starred Pratt as Chris (coincidentally), a man wrongly accused of a crime he didn't commit. For his trial, he's sent to the Mercy courts, which are presided over by an AI judge that just happens to look exactly like Rebecca Ferguson.
There are no lawyers, no right to a defense, and no time to think. Chris has 90 minutes to prove his innocence by a certain percentage, only using evidence he can gather and sift through himself. Oh, did I mention he's tied to a mechanical chair the entire time?
While there's a lot that Mercy gets wrong, it takes risks in ways we probably didn't appreciate when it first came out in January. Confining a movie to one location is no easy feat, and Mercy manages to deliver a nail-biting mystery without its main protagonist so much as standing up.
Then there's the conversations about AI itself. Artificial Intelligence doesn't come away from Mercy as a hero or a villain, instead asking us to question if we're using it in the most beneficial ways (answer: no).
In fact, you can see what Pratt himself has to say on the matter below:
In the final 20 minutes of the movie, all hell breaks loose — and as does Chris from his chair. Mercy taps into typical action tropes to deliver its final showdown, and it's an effective shift. If you haven't enjoyed the story being told through screens up until this point, it's a much-needed reprieve.
In hindsight, I think I was too harsh on Mercy when it first released in January. I was sure that it was set to be one of the worst movies of 2026, but somehow, I've already seen films that have been far less satisfying (ahem, the Peaky Blinders movie).
Even if you're stoked for Super Mario's return, Mercy would actually make a pretty sweet Chris Pratt double-bill. Both in fantasy land, with a looming villain and a race against time... what more could you ask for?
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