Circle (2015) is a sci-fi thriller that was created by Aaron Hann and Marcio Miscone. The film can be found on Netflix which is where I watched it. This movie is 87 minutes long.

As with most low budget movies you can find on Netflix, it is very low quality. The film centers around a large group of people who have been abducted by aliens and forced to stand in a circle. If they step out of the spot they stand on then they are killed, and every few minutes they must choose a person to kill, or the device will choose at random. The group of people are from drastically different backgrounds and occupations, leading to conflict amongst them.

Due to this diverse group, and the stress of the situation, conflict breaks out over who should be killed. These include a police officer blaming and street thug for their situation, a businessman blaming an immigrant, and an atheist blaming a priest that had been abducted with them. These events generally come off as extremely funny and contrived. People secretly claim to be in a relationship to attempt to survive, further complicating things. There is little tension in the film and it is rather funny.

I would give this film a 4/10. It is entertaining but nothing more, whatever the message the film maker’s were trying to deliver falls flat.

This movie is bad, it is predictable and the ending was atrocious. The characters were all very generic and the plot was just as predictable. There have been numerous other Mission Impossible movies, although I haven’t see any of them, so keep in mind this has likely affected my view of the movie.

While the action scenes are well made, they hold no real gravity because it’s so obvious none of the characters are going to die or be harmed in any real way. As I have stated, the plot is painfully generic, just as the characters are, I don’t even remember their names. All of the characters have ridiculous power levels that render them invincible as with many other action movies. I cant think of a single time the any of the characters were seriously injured besides in the ending fight. Tom Cruise’s character is hit by a car while travelling on a motorcycle at high speeds, and gets up to run away seconds later. As it is most of the time, the villain remains the most interesting character, but even still has such a ridiculous end goal that it’s hard to get very invested.

The ending was the worst part, with Tom Cruise climbing up a cliff and miraculously deactivating the nuclear bombs with the remote detonator, that after being kicked and thrown around numerous times, was never damaged or fell off of the cliff. The acting and action was decent, but overall the plot was dull, as were the characters, I’d give the movie a 4/10.

Today I’ll be reviewing yet another Jason Statham movie, this time it is Mechanic: Resurrection. This is seemingly a sequel to the original Mechanic movie, but I had no clue this movie or its predecessor existed until I happened to stumble across this movie on TV. The movie is about a hitman named Bishop (Jason Statham), who has to assassinate a series of people or else his “employers” will kill his wife, or something like that. Let me just say that this movie makes no sense and is terrible.

Regardless, it is entertaining if you don’t take it too seriously. The action is fairly entertaining, only because Statham is fun to watch and the action scenes are surprisingly competent. The ways Statham goes about killing his targets is great because of how unorthodox and ridiculous they are. For one kill, Statham gets himself put into a maximum security prison on an island in shark infested waters to kill one of his targets by strangling him. He then sets the body up to make it look like the man is praying when his henchmen come to check on him. Statham sets explosive gum he previously bought on a wall and breaks out, rubbing shark repellant on himself and swimming away.

For another kill, he drills a hole into the bottom of his target’s pool, which hangs out from his penthouse to the streets below. The pool shatters and the man is then sent plummeting to his death. There are many other things that just generally don’t make sense in regards to the plot, and the various characters’ motivations. In the end Statham has to escape a yacht before it self destructs, just to show how over the top the movie can be. I give it a 5/10.