Art Jeffries is an undercover FBI agent who has crossed his superiors and been given jobs that might be considered beneath somebody of his experience. Simon Lynch is a nine-year old autistic boy with a talent for puzzles; one day Simon solves a puzzle and calls the number encoded within it. The puzzle is a test of an 'unbreakable' code, known as 'Mercury', crucial to the protection of key US assets and those behind it will go to any measure to hide the fact that it can be cracked... including murder. Simon's parents are killed and he is reported missing; Agent Jeffries is called in and finds Simon hiding. The murder is made to look like murder-suicide but he is unconvinced; soon it becomes apparent that Simon is still in danger although at this point Jeffries has no idea why. If he is to protect Simon he will have to uncover why is being hunted and by whom.While this isn't Bruce Willis's best action thriller it is still pretty solid. There are plenty of exciting action set pieces and a decent central story. It does require some suspension of disbelief... not only the idea that Simon could crack a modern code just by looking at it but also that somebody would commit murder to 'protect America' when Simon's actions don't pose a threat; they merely show the code wasn't as good as everybody thought. This isn't too much of a problem though as the story moves at a good pace and it is only when it is over one thinks of such matters. Films of this type often have an unnecessary romance and I thought this might too but that cliché was nicely avoided. Bruce Willis does a fine job as agent Art Jeffries and Alec Baldwin is suitably villainous as bad-guy Nick Kudrow. The stand out performance comes from young Miko Hughes who gives a great performance as Simon. Overall I wouldn't call this a must see but it is still well worth watching if you are a fan of the genre.

Mercury Rising is a cliched thriller with a good performance from its three main stars, Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin and Miko Hughes.Hughes is an autistic boy, Simon who likes puzzles and finds one that is supposed to be an uncrackable government code. Once bad guy Baldwin finds out that one small autistic boy can crack this code and potentially put covert operatives around the world in danger, he orders the boy to be killed rather than fix the code.Willis is the burnt out FBI agent who is tasked to keep the boy safe.The film is rather routine and conventional, the performances are earnest enough to make it watchable and even overlook some of the silliness of the plotting.

A nine-year-old autistic boy solves a complex encryption code called "Mercury". That sets off a chain of secretive and seedy events to cover up that discovery.The premise of the movie was awesome but its approach and execution was comical. What's the surest way to keep secret the fact that a multi-billion dollar program was undermined by a nine-year-old autistic boy? Kill him of course. That's where the movie went "left"--to use the words of rap mogul and world class buffoon, Birdman.This movie was a wave of rampant executions in order to keep an expensive program alive. One-by-one people ended up dead even if they had the remotest affiliation with "Mercury" and their deaths weren't particularly imaginative or covered up. I really think the writers lacked creativity. This movie could've been so much better had the powers-that-be gone about everything differently-- meaning intelligently. But such is Hollywood most times, they prefer style over substance.

Despite having a soft spot for this movie, I don't own it and have not seen it in years, so when it was on TV last night I watched it with my 15 year old son.Plot In A Paragraph: The NSA has developed unbreakable code which they call MERCURY. They test it by putting it in a puzzle magazine. Simon Lynch, an autistic boy who has an affinity for puzzles sees it and deciphers it and calls the NSA. Kudrow (Alec Baldwin) the head in charge of MERCURY worried what might happen if this gets out orders that Simon be terminated. The man he sends kills his parents but is unable to find Simon and leaves when the police arrive. An FBI Agent who is in the bad books Art Jeffries (Brice Willis) finds Simon, who was hiding and takes him to the hospital. While there, the assassin takes another try but Art saves Simon and they go on the run.Alec Baldwin is awful and some awful CGI and green screen DUI why should be intense moments, but that is more than made up for by the performances of both Bruce Willis (who is as charismatic as always) and even more so by Miko Hughes, who is simply superb as Simon.My fifteen year old laughed at the wrong moments a few times ("how fake does that look??") but overall he enjoyed it, and I still think it's an above average Bruce Willis flick.