Emma Watson and Tom Hanks are in The Circle

"The Circle" star Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, John Boyega, and Karen Gillian is about Mae Holland (Emma Watson) who lands a dream job at a powerful technology company called "The Circle" fronted by Tom Hanks, and she discovers that this company is really not what they say they are.

"The Circle" is a movie full of potential. It stars Emma Watson who is fresh off a great performance in "Beauty And The Beast," so I was excited to see if they would jump-start her acting career again. Luckily this movie is getting a wider release than some of her other films that have flown under the radar between Harry Potter and Beauty And The Beast, so maybe directors will get a chance to look at her realize her potential right? I'll come back to her in a minute.

"The Circle" is a good idea. It is a relevant topic for the society that we live in today. We are so immersed in this technology-based world now where we ourselves even wonder about some of the scenarios the film portrays, and that's the biggest praise I can give this film. Other than that, this film is a sloppy mess full of dull characters, really bad dialogue, and poor acting. 

Other than those flaws, there is one core problem with this movie. This movie tries so hard to raise questions for the viewer, which it does, but never reaches the heights necessary to answer these questions. I fully understood the movie. It's just that the central theme of this movie (whether or not we are secretly being watched, if we need to know the difference between public and private) never hammers these thoughts into your brain the way it should. 

There is a subplot that is introduced in this movie, and it goes nowhere. It was almost like the movie was on cruise control but sped past the exit you needed to get off at. That whole subplot is just brushed under the rug and forgotten about. 

The acting is really bad in the movie. Emma Watson is fine, though I am still waiting for her to give us that Oscar worthy performance that I know she's capable of. I will say that I thought her performance improved as the movie went on, but there were times at the beginning when i thought her performance was a little wooden. John Boyega is good in the three scenes he is in. That's right, three scenes. He only gets three scenes to shine. To me this is just a filler movie for him to keep busy in between "The Force Awakens" and "The Last Jedi," but I wanted to see more of him. Karen Gillan annoyed the hell out of me in "Guardians Of The Galaxy," she annoyed the hell out of me in this, and rumor has it, she's annoying in "Gaudrians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2." So yeah my tolerance level with her is gone. The rest of the supporting cast is awful. There's this character named Mercer and the actor that plays him looks like he never acted a day in his life. Then when Tom Hanks is on screen you look at him and think to yourself "oh, so this is what acting is like."

The characters in this film are literally some of the dumbest characters I have ever seen. The main character Mae is hollow. There's nothing to her. She has no arc whatsoever. I just don't buy the fact that a girl with her intellect would just walk into this big conglomerate, look around, and think everything is going to be okay. No, just no. Put it this way. If Google and Facebook had a kid and that kid took a bunch of anabolic steroids... that's the company The Circle. If I walked into that place the moment I walked in I would think "well this place looks super shady. Peace out homies!" Her character rises to the top of the ladder in the company so quick you wonder how she got there. They don't show it, so how did it happen. John Boyega's character had nothing to him, he went nowhere, I didn't care. Tom Hanks, you knew he was gonna be this shady villain but hide it for the majority of the movie, and that's exactly what happened. 

This movie played out the way I expected it to. Woman gets a job at a tech company. She enjoys her time, she rises to the top, finds out they're shady and exposes them. This movie is predictable, the acting is awful save for Watson, Boyega, and Hanks. The writing is all over the place. There's no characters, and the characters that we get have little to no development. Subplots are introduced and those end up going nowhere. Overall you're better just waiting for "The Circle" to stream for free.

Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4287320/?ref_=nv_sr_2