Highly Overrated But Still Good

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The most vacuous film imaginable. Emma Watson could kill her career with this tripe.

OK, the change from Saulus to Paulus was predictable, but many a-movies have been made on that topic so, why not. But the whole sense - in my opinion - of that kind of radical change in ones credo should be minutely documented, I mean, that's the whole point of it, no? What will you do on your way back to being found, how will you manage to expose your former demigods? All of that should take a little more than "I did everything you asked!". For a moment there, I was about to say, darn, the girl can act. Eventually, I returned to my initial conviction that she should have stayed with Harry Potter. There are two arguments though that I would like to contradict myself on that: first, obviously, even the mighty Hanks can be part of a nonsense like this, second, there is one scene, at the end, with Emma starring at the drones and greeting them, where she displays precisely the part she should have acted after the change in her conviction: seemingly naive but with all the knowledge she had acquired in the meantime. Sadly, she didn't. In summary: too expensive actors with to little money left for a descent screenplay. No recommendation from me.

Mae (Emma Watson) unexpectedly lands a job at The Circle - a social media company which seems to be an amalgam of Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon etc. - but mostly Facebook (allegedly). She's carried away on a wave of optimism for the life-sharing potential of the software forgetting the importance of privacy.And it's privacy, and the way social media software can steal it from us, that's the theme of the movie. Some scenes are eerily prescient - particularly one involving voting and elections.Sadly, a strong theme and some accurate predictions don't make a movie. We need strong characters who we care about. But Mae's motivations are confused, changing and contradictory and ultimately she loses our sympathy.The other main character is the boss of the company. We could call him Jeff Zuckjob, but actually he's called Bailey and played by Tom Hanks. For such a character, a thin veneer of social largesse hides a deep obsession with what salable data can be collected, who would want to buy it, and how could they use it. What drives these people is power and ultimately money - if we're looking for Bailey's motivation: follow the money. But unfortunately the film just doesn't do that. We get no more than the vaguest of hints as to what really drives The Circle and what drives Bailey, so his character too ends up being unsatisfactory.In the end, the exposition of the theme gets in the way of the story.It's been suggested on here that a strong cast were sold on the importance of the theme before they read the screenplay. Emma, and particularly Tom with his age and experience, should really have fixed this before it got to the screen. But maybe that's not how Hollywood works these days.If you're looking to see political issues cleverly woven into a movie, try Pelican Brief, or Erin Brokovich. Oh. Actually, both with Julia Roberts. I wonder if that's significant.

I forced myself to watch entire movie. It could have been so much better....just when I thought it would go one way it went 180 the other direction. Not sure what message this film was trying to get across...the dangers of social media....dangers of mob rule....dangers of not researching a possible employer...so yes current real events surrounding Facebook etc should open up people's eyes about social media and how being constantly connected to the net is not really a good thing. Movie does make you think...Mercer was disturbed...really? And um probably should have covered antlers FALL off. Just saying....peeps need a clue.