THE FUSE

“Mercy” is built around two hooks that feel destined to inspire a lack of enthusiasm among critics. The first is that it stars Chris Pratt, who has not exactly found favor in the twelve years since he held down the center of “Guardians of the Galaxy.” In that movie, he seemed a natural-born star; his likability was part of the film’s chattery spontaneous pre-Marvel-overkill flow. Yet Pratt started to get swallowed up by the top-heavy franchise movies he was in — and it didn’t help that reviewers, weirdly, seemed to hold him almost responsible for his character’s stalker ethics in “Passengers” (2016). Over those last dozen years, he became a B-list presence.