Anon

It's a world where everybody's POV is being recorded and accessed through a vast database called The Ether. Solving crimes has become easy for police investigator Sal Frieland (Clive Owen) until a series of killings where all the recordings have been hacked and corrupted. Charles Gattis (Colm Feore) is his supervisor. Suspicion falls on a mysterious woman (Amanda Seyfried) who is able to erase her image from the database.

This is pure old fashion sci-fi. It's been stripped down. There are no car chases. Even the sets are unadorned which makes sense when one's vision can be altered anyways. This is reminiscent of reading an old sci-fi story. It's a fascinating world but only for true sci-fi fans. It's a black and white movie in a world of color. The thrills are drained from it but one can see it. There is one section where Sal's vision is being constantly corrupted which could have been a great CGI action sequence. Although I wouldn't likely to accept it since the audience knows it to be a fake. This will divide the audience between those who like old sci-fi stories from those who like action sci-fi.

Sometimes I can't understand reviewers here. I mean, if a sci-fi movie is reviewed, then writer should criticize it (good or bad) from sci-fi view angle. And even then, one shouldn't compare one sci-fi genre with another.

Anon is raw sci-fi, without amazing effects and stunning fights. It's story is more actual than ever.. or at least it should be. In a society, where we "feel the need" to be "connected" all the time.. without second thoughts about possible consequences in very near future.

In short: good actors and good idea well presented. Makes you thinking after movie ends -which is the main point of good sci-fi. I give it 8 stars.

So let me start off by saying that I understand the film had its problems, but I still enjoyed it, and if you really don't have anything better to watch, then this is a good time-killer. So the idea is neat, people have brain implants connected to the eyes like a cyborg, and someone hacks it, changing reality to become anonymous. And while this idea is very cool and was interesting for about 45 to 50 minutes, but I feel like this would have made a better short film, because that idea is mostly all they have and its drawn out, the techy tricks only go so far. I like the actors in this one like Seyfied and Owen, and they did a moderately serviceable job in their roles. The first few hacker tricks are neat but it gets old after a while, and I found myself waiting for the ending. I felt the film drags on pulling out the same old trick. But thats just my opinion.

So as I said, I like the tricks and special effects involved, but that was truly the only thing I really LIKED. Everything else was average or above average at most. The acting was fine, considering it had some respected actors in it. The cinematography outside the special effects and what not was also very average, nothing to be amazed at like certain genius cinematographers. Honestly it wasn't a fantastic film, but it also wasn't terrible and 1 star like some people are saying, I enjoyed MOST of it, kind of got bored towards the end, but the first couple of tricks were fun, and I'll give them that.

I watched this with no particular expectation about the story, and I haven't seen "Black Mirror." Two of my favorite actors, Clive Owen and Colm Feore star in it - I'm one of those old-fashioned people who follows the actors or director.

"Anon" takes place some time in the future, where no one has any privacy, where everyone's history is instantly available, everyone's memories are recorded and can be viewed.

Detective Sal Frieland becomes intrigued as he investigates a series of murders and sees a young woman on the street who has no data. The murders are traced to a message board where people go to contact a hacker who can erase something in their record. Could this woman be killing her clients? He goes undercover to hire her and find out her identity.

Amanda Seyfried plays the woman, Anon, and she looks completely different as a brunette. The film is interestingly photographed - in kind of gray tones with lots of strange camera angles.

I found it an interesting concept and enjoyed the film.

Anon

Imagine a world where everything you see is collected in your brain and stored as a digital record, which can be accessed sometimes with your permission, and sometimes without. It's a world where everyone is accountable for their actions, because their actions cannot be hidden. We can immediately imagine the benefits of such technology because lying, cheating, stealing and murder cannot occur in an environment where everyone's digital record can be accessed, and evidence of consciousness of guilt gets written and stored on your digital brain, which can then be either downloaded or shared telepathically.

However, in the real human world, the desire to lie, cheat, steal and murder does not go away, simply because there is technology to uncover one's deeds. In the real world, people want privacy for non-nefarious as well as nefarious deeds. And in Anon, this is where computer hackers come to engage and sell their services. One such hacker specializes in erasing client's records, as well as the records of those who interacted with her client in planning or engaging in criminal, and sub-criminal deeds. The only problem is that there is a serial killer killing off the hacker's clients and framing the hacker for the murders.

Anon is both an original and clever movie which addresses the philosophical question of how much information should the government have regarding your personal life, your thoughts and your memories, all at the expense of privacy and anonymity. It forces the viewer into a creepy world where your personal thoughts are public, and that nothing is secret, or even worse, that your record can be altered.

I'm not sure if Anon is as much original as it is simply taking existing technology and extrapolating where tech companies, and a police state would love to have tech go. Because it has not been done before, and subtly integrates into the discussion, the tension of the technology privacy debate, and a serial killer, Anon, gets high marks for originality. This simply has not been done before.

Anon, however, doesn't go the whole mile. Anon disappoints in that it had the potential to be a truly superb film. The failure to show the political, social and economic struggle as to how the world got to the point of implementing such technology is a catastrophic failure in that it suggests that this level of intrusion is simply the new normal, and that there is, and was never outrage behind its implementation. WTF. It also, fails to discuss or elaborate the potential for such technology to be weaponized or simply create world wide anarchy.

Additionally, I took issue with (1) slow pace of the film (2) underdevelopment of the serial killer (3) somewhat monotone acting and (4) seemingly lack of suspense and drama, given the potential issues which could have been incorporated into the film.

The above issues notwithstanding, it is the kind of movie, you get drawn into to watch and listen, because there are some good nuggets in the script. Given the message, I'll watch it a second time, and maybe a third, even though the ending was both anti-climatic, and disappointing.