Actor Chris Pratt introduced his upcoming film Mercy at CinemaCon, but the footage revealed felt curiously similar to a much older Tom Cruise vehicle. Director Timur Bekmambetov’s new sci-fi mystery was one of a few Amazon MGM movies presented at the relevant panel, alongside announcements regarding 007, Masters of the Universe, and The Thomas Crown Affair. Unlike these reboots and adaptations, however, Mercy follows an original story about a detective in the high-tech future accused of murdering his wife.

The major hook for the movie is the film’s Mercy program. The CinemaCon trailer for Chris Pratt’s Mercy establishes that reasonable doubt is measured by percentages. Pratt’s character only has to prove that his guilt is less than 92% plausible to be acquitted, but he only has an hour and a half to do so. It’s far too early to tell if this will be one of Chris Pratt’s best movies, but there’s a good chance that Mercy‘s success will be hampered by the fact that it already draws too many comparisons to a successful film from 2002.

Mercy’s Story Holds A Lot Of Similarities To Minority Report

The General Premise Of Each Is Nearly Identical

One of the best-ranked Steven Spielberg films of the early 2000s was Minority Report, which follows a very similar premise as Mercy. Tom Cruise plays Precrime Chief John Anderton, whose job is to arrest murderers before they can carry out the deed. But when John is falsely accused by the Precrime program’s all-seeing “precogs” of committing a future murder, he has to prove his innocence before the murder can be carried out.

That’s not to say there aren’t significant differences between Minority Report and Mercy as well. Although Pratt’s character suggests he helped begin the Mercy program, Anderton only joined Precrime in response to a family trauma. Pratt also suggested at CinemaCon that he spends much of the movie in a single chair, whereas Minority Report involves numerous large settings and major action beats. Yet even if Mercy manages to beat Minority Report‘s ending in conjuring up a compelling twist, it’ll be fighting an uphill battle to achieve success.

Chris Pratt’s Mercy Will Have A Difficult Time Beating Minority Report

It’s Still Hailed As One Of Tom Cruise’s Best Movies

Mimicking the reception of Minority Report won’t be easy for Mercy to accomplish. Minority Report‘s differences from the Philip K. Dick novella it’s based on might have dissuaded some diehard sci-fi fans from seeing it, but the movie still grossed more than $358 million at the box office against a $102 million budget. That’s enough to make it one of costar Colin Farrell’s highest-grossing movies ever, falling behind only The Batman and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, both of which benefited from pre-existing franchise appeal.

Spielberg’s sci-fi hit also received critical acclaim, earning 89% on Rotten Tomatoes while even becoming one of the more interesting movies that predicted the future thanks to the film’s portrayal of targeted advertisements. And while some might make this same criticism of Tom Cruise, moviegoers are particularly starting to feel like Chris Pratt only really ever plays one character. If Mercy doesn’t work to at least address that criticism, the odds of it outranking Minority Report among critics are fairly slim.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes