“Didja guys ever seen Antitrust? It starred Ryan Phillippe with Tom Robbins as an evil Bill Gates type. It was basically The Net crossed with The Skulls, where Ryan is the young hot shot recruited at a Microsoft-like company that’s taking over the world, and of course they have nefarious ambitions. The Circle is exactly the same movie, only the technology has been updated to a Facebook-esque social media company.
I mean, really, it’s the exact same movie. I predicted several plot points because they lined up with those in Antitrust. So if you’re in it for the story, we’ve seen it all before.
What make The Circle interesting, is that it brings up a lot of questions about privacy issues. How much sharing is too much? Of course, the movie sorta assumes that the world wants to know what you’re doing at all times. I think for me, that was the beliveability line I couldn’t cross. If I broadcast my whole life at all times, who is gonna wanna watch? Maybe my mom for like a few minutes, but that’s it.
Now assuming I didn’t have that problem, what about the privacy and oversharing and oversaving discussion? The movie raised a lot of questions, but it didn’t do a whole lot with them. In fact, most of the movie felt like they threw a bunch of ideas together, and hoped they’d all mesh well and make sense in the end, but clearly they really didn’t know where they wanted to go with them.
Okay so then maybe play up the thriller aspect? Sorry, Antitrust did that better.
Now that I’m rethinking it all, I’m less impressed. I walked out of there feeling like it was fun and interesting, but now all I’m seeing are the flaws. I’m knocking this down another half point.
The Circle – \m/ \m/ \n”