Wow, just wow. A total bomb from start to finish. Emma Watson plays Mae, a tech-savvy youngster stuck in a crappy job doing bill collections via phone. Her friend Annie (Karen Gillan) gets her an interview at The Circle, a big tech company that seems to be an amalgam of Facebook and Google. Needless to say, Mae gets the job. The campus at The Circle would be straight out of science fiction if it weren't for Google's real-life campus - a sort of mix between a college (where no one seems to have classes) and an adult Chuck E. Cheese. There's everything from hot yoga to Quidditch, plus private concerts with acts such as Beck. It's not just a trendy work environment, it's a bleeding edge of hipsterism. The Circle itself is a be-all kind of company, much like Google is, trafficking more in ideas than in material goods. It's run by Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks), a stand-in for Steve Jobs, who oozes personality and whose mantra is that sharing is caring and who holds weekly "dream meetings" with the entire campus to put forth his new ideas. Naturally, Mae is head over heels for this new job, since it's such a pleasant environment in which to work, and even more so when she learns she can add her parents (Bill Paxton and Glenne Headley) to her insurance - which means that Dad's MS treatments are covered! Doesn't matter that her customer-approval score is "only" 84, they like her! And she likes it there! Bailey's new idea is called SeeChange, an initiative to create and deploy tiny camera all over the world so that there are no secrets. Raise any alarms? The cameras come in different colors, so they can blend in almost everywhere! And they'll collect data, relentlessly relaying all of it to Circle HQ for analysis. Crimes can be stopped! People can be helped! The world will prosper! Unlike the audience, Mae and the rest of the staff don't see any problems with this approach. The staff meetings, incidentally, are unbelievable - pep rallies for the boss? For a place that seems to pride itself on innovation, there doesn't seem to be an inquisitive mind in the bunch. It's all awesome to them, especially when Bailey tosses the cameras out into the crowd. It's more of a cult, really. At one point, Mae has a video chat with her mom and notices a homemade chandelier in the background, made by Mae's friend Mercer (Ellar Coltrane). After the call, Mae messages everyone in The Circle (they're very, very big on social networking) and plugs Mercer's work. Turns out to be a bad idea, because he finds himself labeled as a deer killer and receives death threats. Whoops. This doesn't deter Mae, though; she still believes wholeheartedly in Bailey's ideas. Later, she helps come up with a new initiative herself that allows people - using the many SeeChange cameras - to find someone in the world. This can't possibly be used for bad, right? Shenanigans ensue. All of the red flags that popped up would have been recognized by even the dumbest staffer, so it makes zero sense that Mae doesn't grasp what's going on - and what's to come. The bad guys are broadly, broadly written, and every plot point seems equally obvious and ridiculous. There's no good reason for the story to progress past the first half hour or so - there's so much dumbness. And Watson, Hanks, and Gillan, plus John Boyega as a master programmer and Patton Oswalt as the company's CEO, are woefully one dimensional. It certainly feels as if this movie wouldn't have been made if it weren't for the star power involved; but here, rather than talented actors raising up a bad script, they merely sink with it. This is terrible.
Review of The Circle
