I’m not going to lie. I will watch any movie with Tom Hanks in it. Whether it’s him as a pilot or a lawyer or a weird tech guy, it doesn’t matter. If he’s in it, sign me up. With that being said, the Circle would seem like a great film for me. Tom Hanks? Check. Emma Watson? Check. Patton Oswalt? Check. Finn? Check mate. But it wasn’t. Why? What happened?
Story: Based on a novel, the Circle is about a young lass who joins a Google-esque company, called the Circle, that is the biggest and most popular company on the face of the Earth. Our young heroine gets deeply involved in the Circle and learns some of it’s deep dark secrets and has to team up with one of the disgruntled founders to stop the company from taking over the world. That would’ve been a good story. Nice, easy, and to the point. However, that’s not the story. I think it’s what the story was supposed to be but it took a turn onto Muddled Plot Road. Being serious, I believe the problem here is that some books just have too many small details to be made into a feature length film and this is one of those books. It’s as if details and entire story arcs were lost in translation and the end result was just a sad excuse for a film.
Acting: The acting here is not good and it’s rather disappointing. As I said in the intro, there are some heavy hitters here but none of their performances could be considered good. While I think it’s the fault of the script and the writing rather than the actors themselves, it’s still sad that they couldn’t add life to this boring movie.
Presentation: Like with the plot and acting, this movie doesn’t look or sound special in any way. The sets are dull and the music mind as well not be there. In fact, the movie would’ve been better off silent. Plus, the movie commits the sin of throwing random things onto the screen that are just distracting and unnecessary.
Effect: So I’m torn here. There were some points where I felt very uncomfortable…in a good way. I’ll explain. A lot of this movie is about how far technology will take us and as technology gets better, our privacy is decreases. It’s an interesting fable that has a lot of real life implications and had the film hammered that point home, I would’ve excused some of the other sins of the film, However, that focus is only there for part of the film. The rest of it is too muddled and all over the place; stuck between a drama and a thriller. Finally, the ending kind just throws away the only good points of the movie that were worth watching.
Other: This movie isn’t good. Please save yourself some time and money and just go watch Guardians 2 (assuming that is as good as critics say).
While this film was not good, I am excited for the day when we get a good film that tackles issues like this one but presents it in a decent film with a good script, better acting, and magnificent presentation. Until then, I guess I’ll just wait for Guardians!
Story: 3
Acting: 4
Presentation: 2
Effect: 4
Other: 2
Score: 3
No Duty to Watch 