Review of The Circle (2017) by Freddylives99 — 21 Jun 2017

“The Circle” is labeled as a thriller, and the trailers would also suggest that, but it’s as much of a thriller as “Saving Private Ryan” is a comedy. There are two scenes where characters find themselves in trouble, by their own stupidity, mind you, but they feel so out of place with the tone of the rest of the film, which is light and happy.

Let’s get into this non-thrilling plot. Mae, played by Emma Watson, is a new member of The Circle, a gigantic tech corporation. She does customer support, or something, and becomes part of a safe, overly-friendly community that likes to party and do improvisational comedy.

Sound exciting yet? Mae quickly gets the attention of the head of the company, Bailey, played by Tom Hanks. Bailey makes Mae the face of The Circle after she hardly puts any effort into her job, and she couldn’t be happier.

Bailey is the film’s antagonist, by the way, but none of his bad side is ever shown. He’s an inventor who has just created a wave of small, extra high tech cameras that are hard to detect and can survey the entire world.

The idea of everyone being watched by cameras should tip you off right away that he’s a bad guy, but so many people are accepting of this idea, especially our main character. Most of Bailey’s scenes are of presentations, and the millions of audience members who show up for these presentations are all 100% on board with his ideas, when the average person watching this movie probably wouldn’t be… one hopes.

These audiences are not made up of actual human beings, they are sheeple. When a presenter has an idea, they’re all for it, when a joke is made, they all laugh, when one starts a chant, they all join in.

Whoever is leading the herd can change all their mindsets in an instant. There are too many presentations for one movie. Anyway, Mae has this friend who is not cool with being spied on, and tries to convince her that what The Circle is doing is wrong, but fails.

The friend’s name is Mercer, and if you think you’ll forget that name, don’t worry, it’s repeated at least a hundred times throughout the film. People don’t like Mercer, and it’s for a very random reason, but the reason is also completely understandable, and I didn’t like him either.

It’s clear the director wants you to feel sympathy for him, but that was impossible for me. John Boyega pops up a few times, and he’s set up to be a possible love interest for Emma Watson, but then he just isn’t, and is almost completely forgotten.

Maybe the director was afraid to show an interracial relationship? Bill Paxton plays Mae’s father Vinnie, his last role ever, and he’s the reason why I stayed in my seat. I suffered through a lot of garbage just to see one of my childhood heroes in his final on-screen moments.

Game over, man. Game over. “The Circle” is a light-hearted young adult drama posing as a sci-fi thriller. There should have been a sense of dread about living in an age of worldwide espionage where no one has privacy, but the director doesn’t know how to create tension, and this just becomes wasted potential.

I could do so much more nitpicking. There are about as many random and unintentionally funny moments as “The Room”. This movie would work on a so-bad-it’s-good level if it wasn’t so long and dull.

Though there is an impressive cast, don’t waste your time or money with “The Sheeple”.