The Future Is Now..."The Circle"

The Circle (2017)

Rated PG-13

Starring Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, Ellar Coltrane, Glenne Headley, Bill Paxton, Karen Gillan, John Boyega

Directed by James Ponsoldt

The Story:

Mae (Watson) lands a job at The Circle. As she quickly moves up the ranks of employees, her life and importance to the company rapidly changes in ways she could never dream. As her company prepares to unveil their latest technological marvel, Mae has to make a decision that could alter humanity...forever!

Imagine a world where everyone is addicted to technology...

Oh, wait...

Imagine a world where giant technology firms seemingly invade the private lives of their users and employees...

Oh, wait...

So you see, this isn't so much a futuristic thriller as it is a mashup of life as we already know it.

It's both a movie that was a warning to deliver to the audience about these tech giants, but they meander and present the message in such a way that you almost don't care about it, or any of the characters by the time they get around to doing it.

Hanks is charming, with a touch of sinister in the Jobs-like role of Bailey, The Circle's founder.

Yet while watching this film, I realized further that I'll never "get" the appeal of Emma Watson as an actress.

I'm sure that giant cry of blasphemy is from all the Harry Potter fans out there, but with the knowledge that I have not, nor will I likely ever see those movies either, you'll never win me over with that argument.

She just always seems so wooden, or fake to me in all of the roles I have seen her in, I will follow her career with indifference at this point.

The movie is watchable enough, but could have used some serious editing to reduce the run-time from the nearly two hours to a more crisp and effective 90 minutes.

Pick up the pace, trim a lot of the unnecessary subplots that really go nowhere, and you might have had something.

Instead, go find The Truman Show, Nerve,  or any of the other films that have used the "we're watching you" again, and enjoy a much better movie.

Final Grade: C-

Looking For A New Job? Sign Up For "The Internship"

Not sure what the film is about?

Google it!

The Story:

Billy (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Owen Wilson) are two salesmen whose company has folded.  Not sure what to do with their next step in life, Billy gets an idea to try for an internship at Google.  If selected, they will receive full-time jobs when it's all over.  The only problem, these guys are old, slow and not tech-savvy.  However, they could be just the outside-of-the-box thinkers that Google is looking for.

There are some movies you just dread going into.  There's no way it's going to be any good/funny.

This was that movie for me.

Reteaming with Owen Wilson for the first time since Wedding Crashers in 2005, I've got to admit, the two make a great team.

Vince Vaughn plays...well, himself.

And considering he also wrote the story, well, who knows how to write Vince Vaughn dialogue better than Vince Vaughn?

Nobody!

He's got the slick salesman routine down to a science.

Which means, this is going to be much like every other Vince Vaughn performance: you'll either love it, or hate it.

Me?

I love the guy.

He's a hustler, with a heart.

Wilson gets the romantic lead portion of the story, so it's kind of nice that they were able to pull off the fish out of water and a romance, but it all wasn't centered on one character.

By allowing the two storylines to work side by side, nothing feels as forced as comedies or romantic comedies often do.

I mean, to have a guy fighting to land a job and a girl all at the same time, the imagination gets stretched a bit thin on that plot.

But by dividing and conquering the plot, it works, and works really well.

Naturally, the guys have a lot to learn, but they've also got a bit to offer the younger kids that they are teamed with as well.

The movie is both rated and unrated.  I watched the rated version, and I don't think the storyline would be served any better by adding gratuitous nudity to the mix.

At the end of the day, it turned out to be a pretty good movie.

And a great commercial to make you want to work for Google!

Final Grade: B-

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor:  I could watch it again, but not in any hurry to own it.