IMDB Summary: A woman lands a dream job at a powerful tech company called the Circle, only to uncover a nefarious agenda that will affect the lives of her friends, family and that of humanity.
*SPOILERS to the story are below. Read at your own risk *SPOILERS
- The cast is rather impressive
Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, John Boyega, Ellar Coltrane, Karen Gillan, Bill Paxton in his last film role. A rather big and impressive cast. And that is all the good I have to say about the movie.
- This was not a thriller
Not one point of this movie did I feel that Mae (Emma Watson) was in any real danger. Nor did I care if she succeed or not. This wasn’t a scary warning of technology and privacy rights that can be intruded on. This movie was just a type of concept of a Facebook live video gone bad and implications that it could have. I see more stories like this all the time in the news. Told and warned better of the dangers live streaming can have on people it’s society and when risk we run showing this live to a group or nation. With the circle, we get an end message of if it’s broke, how can we fix it and make it more broken. Plus too many plot holes to even give a impactful warning.
- Incoherent Story
There were parts of the movie which I felt that they wanted her to be involved in a relationship with Ty (John Boyega). He would then tell her that he started the program but was unhappy with how things are turning out. So he shows up and wants this to change, but he hides in plain sight. After that reveal, then he just disappeared from the main story. Only showing up at the end for plot convenience. The same thing with Mercer (Ellar Coltrane) a friend and another possible love interest I felt, but then he disappeared. Only to come back during the “tragic” Soul Search scene towards the end of the movie. The only interesting to me character was Annie (Karen Gillan) but her story was never made clear why she quit other than looking burned out. A side character that seemed to have had a better main story. Just some of the stories I noticed that went nowhere in this film.
- Soul Searching
There a point in the move that introduces a concept called Soul Search where they claim that anyone can be found in under 20 minutes. They use an example of finding a criminal who was tried for murder. It was believed to be a type of computer software or algorithm, but no just people with camera phones finding and chasing them. What civilian would locate and find a dangerous criminal on their own? What criminal with a murder charge who escaped from jail would work in a public place? Then Mae’s friend Mercer was chosen to be found, which ensues one of the stupidest, predicable chases where he swerves and crashes off of a bridge to avoid hitting a flying toy drone. Killing him in the process.
- Total Transparency
Mae allows herself to become total Transparency of her life to the circle. Sorry, but being able to turn off the camera when you are going to the bathroom (or secret bathroom meetings) is not total transparency. Understandable but you can’t claim I know everything that you do and say. I bring this up because Mae does this at one point with Annie. And how doesn’t Bailey (Tom Hanks) know something was up. Even at the end, he doesn’t do anything to stop her as he exposes him by making everything he did totally transparent in the end. She did this with the help of Ty and exposing secret email that were clear on what he did. He just stood on stage. I just don’t get it.
Harsh thoughts as I did not think of anything positive to say about this movie, did I miss anything? Please comment and share. Thank you for you’re time.
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