This April theaters were hit with a new tech-thriller, “The Circle,” surrounding the common theme of technology, privacy, and those people in control of them. This modern film was reminiscent of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” featuring new and familiar faces, a few to name, Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, and John Boyega.
The most immediate thing noticed when seeing this film is that the trailer that was released, before the movie hit theaters, is incredibly misleading. Yes there is a company called The Circle and they support the idea that “knowing everything is better,” but walking into this movie thinking it’s going to be a thriller is going to be a disappointment.
At most “ The Circle” managed to be a bit creepy, but it in no way begs the viewer to think more about the effects of technology and more so makes you question the motive of Watson’s character and brings you no real satisfaction in the end of the film.
This movie could best be described in two distinctive parts. The first part is of course setting the stage for the movies plot while you try-big emphasis on the try- to ignore Watsons terrible rendition of an American accent and bad acting of a co-star who was played by Ellar Coltran, who was the lead in “Boyhood” which was released in 2014.
The second half of the movie is when it starts to get interesting and sort of give the viewer the “creepy” video taping concepts mixed with these big “ted-talk” like scenes that really do take up a big part of the movie. It’s almost like watching an ‘Apple’ product being released but under a different name.
This film managed to be somewhat unsettling, but did not incite any powerful message, and that is unfortunate because this is a time when that type of platform should have been used. It didn’t shine any light onto our consumption of technology or how we use it, it simply advertised the possibility without truly going through with it.
