The Circle Review
PG-13: A Sexual Situation, Brief Strong Language and Some Thematic Elements Including Drug Use
EuropaCorp, STX Entertainment, Image Nation Abu Dhabi, Likely Story, Playtone
1 Hr and 50 Minutes
Cast: Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, John Boyega, Karen Gillan. Ellar Coltrane. Patton Oswalt. Glenne Headly, Bill Paxton
REVIEW: Thanks STX for not giving us a screening and having critics sneak into it. I guess since The Bye Bye Man and The Space Between Us were significant critical failures, why not give critics screenings for your next film starring Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, and John Boyega? It can’t be that bad right? Oh STX you came a long way from releasing The Gift.
When Mae is hired to work for the world's largest and most powerful tech and social media company, she sees it as an opportunity of a lifetime. As she rises through the ranks, she is encouraged by the company's founder, Eamon Bailey, to engage in a groundbreaking experiment that pushes the boundaries of privacy, ethics and ultimately her personal freedom. Her participation in the experiment, and every decision she makes begin to affect the lives and future of her friends, family and that of humanity.
THE GOOD: In the way this digital age is going, it's frightening to see how interested and nosy people are when they enter your personal life. Everybody have their barriers and everybody wants their privacy but everyone in The Circle are just so messed up as they center attention only to Mae. Just like 2016's Nerve this perfectly depicts how messed up we are as people where technology is the root of it.
The part where the film really kicks into gear is when Mae gets a punishment by her supervisors to become transparent which means become live streamed to everything you do. For a good ten minutes, the movie turns into an actual captivating thriller and then....it lost me.
THE BAD: I wonder how this movie would be if it was written by Aaron Sorkin. Honestly only Aaron Sorkin can write a political science film and make it work. Since there's not Aaron Sorkin type of intelligence in this, everything in this film doesn't work. For a movie with a tagline that says, "Knowing everything is better," you'll come out this movie not knowing a damn thing at all.
Literally, everyone at The Circle is the most condescending group of people ever. When they bring Mae into The Circle her co-workers goes from giving her an orientation to a customer service survey and finally dives into questions about her personal life in under three minutes. It's something so absurd how quickly it escalates. In the span of three minutes, Mae just goes from a curiously, “What?” to an annoyed, “What the hell?”
It is weird that The Circle is shown as this multimedia platform with plenty of different purposes that at times are smart and cool until you realize, these things actually exist in our world. It's never really explained what The Circle really is. At one moment its Periscope, then its Instagram Live, but then people talk about how it can also be a tracking device that can start or stop machines. I’m sorry but HOW?!
You don’t really see coders do anything of the sort to make all these TED talks and philosophies that Tom Hanks and Emma Watson do onstage turn into reality. One of the inciting incidents of the movie is when Mae unveils a new idea, Its tested and just works right off the bat. This girl goes from Mae Holland to Emma Watson really quickly. But in all honestly, I would love to see Tom Hanks and Emma Watson as motivational speakers.
There’s so much awkwardness that goes on in this movie, when Mae meets John Boyega’s character, Ty, she literally asks if he likes Kool-Aid. It's not played for laughs or anything, yet it's one of the first things she asks him and it comes out so wrong.
Speaking of John Boyega, this film really needed more John Boyega. I actually wanna see more John Boyega in movies. I mean he’s currently in the biggest film franchise ever, but seriously he needs to be in more movies. The film introduces him to be one of the reasons why The Circle exists. It really plays him up to have a much major role especially when he's fully introduced in the second act, but as the film goes on he becomes less significant to the story to a point where he just disappears. The dude's only there for probably 7 minutes and that's it. They only use him as reaction shots to remind us that the film has John Boyega in its cast. It's as if John told director James Ponsoldt, “Look, I only have two days here and then I have to film Episode VII, so use me as much as you can.”
Remember that boy from Boyhood, Ellar Coltrane? Well, I didn’t think I’ll see him in film again after that movie but was I wrong. I honestly didn’t expect to see him in this movie and boy is he a terrible actor. There’s a scene where his character Mercer has to confront Watson’s Mae and he is god awful. The moment is supposed to be dramatic, but the delivery of his dialogue lacks both expression and emotion. He delivers all of his lines in the same tone as poor Watson has to act circles around him, but instead gets dragged down with him. They have the acting chops of teenage freshmen who in a High School audition. Not a play, but an audition. There came a point where Watson’s performance was so weak I asked myself, “Is Emma Watson overrated as an actress? Luckily soon she shares a scene with Hanks and Oswald and her performance is back to normal.
I’m very certain I didn’t shut my eyes during the film, so why does it feel like some character mind shift are ever explained thoroughly. The film also stars Karen Gillian who plays Mae’s best friend Annie. You see they have a bond so close they might even be sisters, but once Mae becomes transport Annie just starts to hate on Mae while looking flustered all the time. She literally goes from charming Karen Gillian to Nebula. There’s barely a genuine reason why she turns on her friend other than jealousy. As I type this I just realized we’re getting a two-week hit of Karen Gillian with this and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 next week. You see Mae try to get to know everybody but feel so awkward nearly everyone is so batshit odd that the only people who seem to be sane are her, Ty, and Annie.
By the third act of the film, outta nowhere, it becomes Captain America Winter Soldier as Mae pulls some Scooby-Doo shit as she releases data of her higher ups which honestly makes no sense. How did she do it? She just did. It tries to teach a moral about how much we put out there, but that message is muddled from trying to compare the system of The Circle to the rest of the world’s suffering. The movie doesn't really show Hanks and Oswalt as the antagonists as it wants them to be. If anything the true antagonists are Mae and the people that work in The Circle who live to see everyone's personal lives. The only thing evil about Hanks and Oswalt is that they're hypocrites but that's it.
LAST STATEMENT: With muddled ideas, somewhat of a wasted cast, and confusing character motives throughout, The Circle is an uneven adaptation that doesn’t know whether it wants to be a thriller or a satire of social media.
Rating: 2/5 | 43%
Super Scene: Mae’s final Ted talk (it's not that its good its that its insane).
