The Circle

What a monumental waste of A-class actors!

On paper, this film ticks all the right boxes: topical sci-fi, great actors in fitting roles, plot ingredients that should create great suspense...and yet, it completely fails to deliver at all levels.

I wanted to like this film, so I ignored the first few warning signs: the characters start off a bit one-dimensional, a slightly uninspired representation of Google/Facebook/Amazon-ehm I mean-"The Circle's" headquarters...But then came a couple of scenes that could (no exaggeration) be right out of a CollegeHumor parody video - except they were meant to be serious- and I knew something had gone really wrong with the script and direction.

15-20 minutes into the film everything becomes completely predictable. There isn't a single moment that has you on edge or wondering what's coming next, because everything is as blatant and simplistic as it could be. There's nothing novel about any of the characters or the major plot points. What is worse, the script just can't stop preaching:

"losing all our privacy is bad...mmkay?"

"big corporations shouldn't spy on us all the time...mmkay?"

"sacrificing your personal life in the name of a morally dubious career can have regrettable repercussions...mmkay?"

-NO SH!T movie! Thanks for letting us know, because, you know, we didn't have to write enough 10th grade essays about these things!

Bottom line: I know it's tempting, but don't watch unless you have time to waste. It's not even "so-bad-it's-good" bad, it's just incredibly dull.

Well, it was a bit of interesting to see this movie. I was thinking that it would be a total thriller from beginning till end. However, it turned out that the movie was more drama than thriller. It was categorized as techno-thriller which I think was a term used to describe a movie where the thriller was more on technology side.

Unfortunately, I found that the movie was not having a lot of thrill.

There was no mystery that was very intriguing to find out. There was brief moment of suspense before the end, but that was it.

The premise of the movie itself was actually very promising. We were put under the impression in the beginning that it would be a very interesting dark mysterious story, but till the very end, it was not that mysterious. I understand that the movie was adapted from a novel titled the same written by Dave Eggers. Based on the very brief synopsis of the novel, I think that the movie would have been better had it been honoring the storyline from the novel as it seemed to be more interesting (the novel itself was having better review than the movie).

In term of the characters, I felt that Tom Hanks portrayal of a boss to this very large corporation was very good in the beginning, but not really good at the end. While Emma Watson fresh from her last blockbuster hit Beauty and the Beast was surprisingly good in hiding her British accent. This was also the last movie that Bill Paxton played in. His portrayal of a person having the illness was spot on and made us feel sorry for him. Another one that I think quite stood out was the characters of Annie and Mercer, while the rest did not really gave impressions.

Anyway, I think the idea of the story was quite good and up to date and supposed to make us re-think about the privacy issue in social media.

So it was rather sad to see the movie did not provide a real spark, apart from the brief part towards the end of it. I cannot say that I totally enjoyed the movie, but neither can I say it was a really bad movie. It was just average for me. If you are looking for some smart techno thriller movie with lots of suspense and thrills plus mysteries, then I think this movie did not really up to that level yet. But if you want to see something different, or maybe want to see Tom Hanks & Emma Watson in the same screen together, I guess you could try and see this one. The choice is yours.

Set in the near future "The Circle" tells a horror story of the social media age involving an omnipotent American corporate, pitched somewhere between being Facebook-like and Google-like (note, lawyers, I just said "like"!) Emma Watson ("Beauty and the Beast") plays young intern Mae who, partly through the aid of family friend Annie (Karen Gillan, "Guardians of the Galaxy", "Doctor Who") but mostly through her own aptitude, lands a foothold job in customer services for the company. With the lush corporate campus fast becoming home, Mae is quickly singled out as having "executive potential" by the charismatic CEO Bailey (Tom Hanks, "Bridge of Spies") and his more taciturn sidekick Stenton (US comedian Patton Oswalt).

Progressively brainwashed into believing the company's intrusive snooping (a favourite motto is "Secrets are Lies") is all for 'the greater good', Mae champions the cause until a tragedy rocks her world and her company beliefs to the core.

Whenever I watch a film I tend to form my own opinion first before checking out what the 'general public' on IMDb think. In this case, I must confess to being a bit surprised at our divergence of views: a lot of people clearly hated this movie whereas I confess that I found it very entertaining. Certainly with the alleged role of Russia in influencing elections around the world via social media, the film is most certainly topical! Many reviewers seemed quite upset that Watson's character is such a 'doormat', in that her views are so easily manipulated by the corporate machine. But not every woman – as indeed every man – can or should be a Joan of Arc style role model in every film: why should they be?

I actually found her indoctrination into "the Circle way" as quite convincing, especially a creepy scene where two corporate lackies (Cho Smith and Amir Talai) say that they're not checking up on Mae's social life, but…. Watson enjoys extending her post-Potter repertoire well, but the talented John Boyega ("Star Wars: The Force Awakens") is completely wasted in his role as Ty; the Wozniak-like genius behind The Circle's technology. The script gives him very little to do other than stand around and look grumpy.

The film is sad in being the last movie appearance of the great Bill Paxton ("Apollo 13") who plays Mae's sick father and who died of complications following heart surgery two months before the film's release (the film is dedicated "For Bill"). Tragically, Mae's mother in the film, actress Glenn Headly ("Dirty Rotten Scoundrels") also died suddenly at the age of 62, also due to heart problems, a couple of months after the film's release. It's surprising the film doesn't have a "curse of The Circle" tag on it.

The film was directed by James Ponsoldt, who also wrote the screenplay with novel-writer Dave Eggers ("Away We Go"). I particularly liked the on-screen use of captioning (posts) which was reminiscent to me of last year's "Nerve", a B-movie film I rated highly that also had a string social media theme.

While the ending of the film is a bit twee – a movie definition of "being hoisted by your own petard" – it's overall a thought provoking piece sufficiently close to the truth as to where society is going to raise the hairs on your neck.

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"Knowing is good, but knowing everything is better." Bailey (Tom Hanks)

How much information is too much? The Circle shows in a direct and melodramatic form that the saturation point is here. Mae (Emma Watson) is hired by a tech-centered firm, an amalgam of Apple, Facebook, and the CIA. Their inclusion-full-knowledge mantra culminates in Mae's agreeing to have complete transparency, a Truman Show for our time.

Bailey is the Steve-Jobs guru, whose weekly assembly for the campus is a model of group think and cultism, launching from the newest technology to the newest invasion of privacy. The willingness of the audience to embrace everything from the unethical farming of information to his obviously self-serving anecdotes suggests Jim-Jones cool-aid-audience imbibing.

The film is an attention-getting, absorbing object lesson in neglecting critical thinking.

The film's provocative theme about full disclosure includes the implied dialectic between the common good and privacy. Knowing where criminals are, such as in our sex-offender laws, is good in the case of creeps but scary when innocent citizens are the object.

Two incidents close to the protagonist illustrate the effects of private invasion, one for survival, the other for denying the efficacy. The former is about saving Mae from drowning because of surveillance and the other about the world seeing her aging parents having sex. No one could wish not to have life-saving surveillance; no one could want parental transparency 24/7.

The Circle is frequently simplistic, e.g., having records that allow automatic registration for voting but also require voting, ignores invasion of privacy and personal choice.

None of this polemic completely negates the efficacy of social media and constant contact. However, transparency, the film suggests, invades and makes circus-like a privacy our Constitution implies.

The camera spends too much time on Mae's bland, wondering stare and meaningless conversations that would be better spent arguing the mission of the Circle. At least it's a start toward better regulation of social information both public and private.

I was a big fan of Dave Eggers' A Hologram for the King. It was a fantastic read for enjoyment and to analyze. The film adaptation also did not disappoint. When The Circle was announced as a film I immediately checked out the book. To my disappointment, the film wasn't as interesting an got to bogged down to its technological ventures and wasn't exactly the best read. However, I held out hope that the film would be able to impress, especially with the star studded cast at the helm.

Emma Watson plays Mae Holland an ambitious young customer service rep who joins The Circle, a cutting edge technology based company that seems to be growing at fast pace and changing the future. The thing is, the technological leap of the company leads to massive privacy concerns and the company seems to be capable of more than what initially meets the eye. First off, I will say that the scathing reviews I've seen for the film are somewhat unwarranted, however the film is far from perfect and could have been much better.

The plot may seem like its minimal or nonexistent but this wasn't really my concern. I was more concerned with things being introduced into the film that have no real importance later in the film. John Boyega's character is a glorified cameo that seems to just be there as a big name. In the book the character is mysterious has a much larger effect on Mae's life. The ending of the film leaves much more to be desired; there needed to be more explanation onto what the reveal was and anything about repercussions.

The film is littered with talented people but unfortunately the writing and the structure of the film really lets them down. Its a misfire really, and the film needed to be much better and have a stronger central message. I feel like parts of the film and scenes were left on the cutting room floor. The film isn't exactly terrible but its most certainly unfulfilled and really could have left a stronger impression.

6/10