Circle (2015)

You won't be disappointed!

The Worst Film Ever

Load of rubbish!!

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The movie starts off with 50 random people waking up in a strange room. They all have to stand on red spots, if they move from that position they instantly die. Every 1-2 minutes one of them dies. Eventually the group find out that they can vote on who dies, and this ensues a deadly wheel of fortune. The premise of the show is very interesting and the way the story progresses is thrilling. There are many different social issues explored throughout the movie as well, some are presented much better than others. Themes such as affluence, racism and what people would do to survive are very clear throughout the film.This is not an A-Class film however. This shows. The cinematography is not that great, the technological aesthetic isn't very appealing, the dialogue can come off as very fake and the acting is mediocre to awful. Altogether this is a pretty interesting film and could be put on in the background whilst doing another activity (as it's mostly dialogue).

Circle delivers exactly what is says on the tin and launches straight into the drama from the beginning. The idea is simple and hardly original (it felt very similar to Would You Rather, released in 2012), but it did keep my attention. Despite not knowing most of the cast (except Julie Benz), the performances were strong and the interactions between the characters felt authentic. More could've been done to provide back-story and insight into the characters, but the anonymity of the characters was in a sense a main component of the story because it placed everyone on an level playing field. What movies like this are great for is posing questions about humanity. Most of us consider ourselves to be good, moral people that believe in justice and equality, but when it comes down to a life or death situation how many of us would compromise our belief system in order to stay alive? It's an intriguing thought and it's what makes this movie interesting. I saw a previous reviewer comment that some of the decisions that were made throughout the movie didn't always make sense, and part of me thought the same at certain points (it seemed people jumped on the bandwagon and decided to execute someone just for speaking out), but considering there's a 2 minute time-limit on their decisions, it's understandable. It's fast-paced and pressurised from the beginning and personally, I think the characters behave in a very realistic way. They panic, find ways to cheat the system and survive and eventually accept that whether they like it or not they have to play along, so start making hard decisions on the basis of their personal beliefs and morals. In most instances, the choices of who is killed is fitting and understandable. What lets this movie down is the ending. It's a very intense movie all the way through and the ending leaves you feeling incredibly...deflated. I would've found it more satisfying if there had been a specific reason/purpose for the circle and a much better explanation than what we got. By the time it reached the end it really felt like it had all been for nothing. In addition, I think more development on the characters could've enriched the story. Similar to Saw, how each character is chosen because they've committed an immoral act, it would've been more interesting if each character was in the circle because they'd done something terrible and therefore in a sense deserved to die. Overall, I've seen much worse movies than this. It sustained my attention and nowadays, it takes a lot for a movie to do that. However, if more originality and thought had been put into the creation and execution of the movie, it could've been a 7 or even 8 star rating.

First of, this review contains small, unnecessary spoilers, but nothing that will ruin the movie for you.When I first saw this movie, I was surprised about how good it is. It doesn't have a well know cast, and the premise is kinda weird. But the acting was actually pretty good, the characters (the one's that doesn't die right away) is well written and believable. But that said, it's certainly not a movie for everyone. There's barely any action, it's 99% dialog, which some might find annoying, and that's what makes it good. It doesn't try to appeal to the casual watchers, but works more like a movie to make you think. The movie deals with a difficult topic, that we've all probably thought about at some point - How do we decide who deserves to live and die? In that way, it kinda reminds me of Death Note, but without the action, and with more people deciding who can live and die. Besides that, the only flaw with this movie, is how 'surface level' it is. Some of the 'problems' they deal with, isn't well though about and predictable. Of course they talk about racism, sexuality, how children deserves to leave, how the old should die first, who gives more to society and so on. It feels predictable, where it would have been better to deal with other topics that isn't so 'basic'. Besides that, it's great movie for people who enjoy talky movies, with plenty of philosophic questions, but it has it's flaws. 7/10

I really want to imagine that this movie was pitched after the writers went through some internet comment forums, took the most common themes of moral argument, re-imagined them in a life or death scenario, and scripted out who would ultimately be left alive. Then the CEO boss people told them that the movie needed some context, and they panicked and chose aliens.Luckily for them I love reading comment wars, so I enjoyed this movie just to hear the people arguing with each other over who deserved to live. I think it could've been a really good movie if they had put just a little more effort into the background story and characters. Although I do think it managed to get across quite nicely how easily we sentence people to judgment based on very fast and surface level interactions.I did think it was a fairly realistic representation of how people generally think, however I did not buy at all that it was how most normal people put in that situation would actually act. For starters, I imagine there would be a LOT more confusion and panic at first and people fainting, puking, and accidentally killing themselves by leaving their circle. I would also like to think there would be at least a few more people out of 50 who would refuse to play along with voting for others to die...Anyway, decent movie, probably worth a watch on a lazy weekend evening, but I'm not going to go around recommending it to everyone.