Well, it was a bit of interesting to see this movie. I was thinking
that it would be a total thriller from beginning till end. However, it
turned out that the movie was more drama than thriller. It was
categorized as techno-thriller which I think was a term used to
describe a movie where the thriller was more on technology side.
Unfortunately, I found that the movie was not having a lot of thrill.
There was no mystery that was very intriguing to find out. There was
brief moment of suspense before the end, but that was it.
The premise of the movie itself was actually very promising. We were
put under the impression in the beginning that it would be a very
interesting dark mysterious story, but till the very end, it was not
that mysterious. I understand that the movie was adapted from a novel
titled the same written by Dave Eggers. Based on the very brief
synopsis of the novel, I think that the movie would have been better
had it been honoring the storyline from the novel as it seemed to be
more interesting (the novel itself was having better review than the
movie).
In term of the characters, I felt that Tom Hanks portrayal of a boss to
this very large corporation was very good in the beginning, but not
really good at the end. While Emma Watson fresh from her last
blockbuster hit Beauty and the Beast was surprisingly good in hiding
her British accent. This was also the last movie that Bill Paxton
played in. His portrayal of a person having the illness was spot on and
made us feel sorry for him. Another one that I think quite stood out
was the characters of Annie and Mercer, while the rest did not really
gave impressions.
Anyway, I think the idea of the story was quite good and up to date and
supposed to make us re-think about the privacy issue in social media.
So it was rather sad to see the movie did not provide a real spark,
apart from the brief part towards the end of it. I cannot say that I
totally enjoyed the movie, but neither can I say it was a really bad
movie. It was just average for me. If you are looking for some smart
techno thriller movie with lots of suspense and thrills plus mysteries,
then I think this movie did not really up to that level yet. But if you
want to see something different, or maybe want to see Tom Hanks & Emma
Watson in the same screen together, I guess you could try and see this
one. The choice is yours.
