The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act rounds out the YouTube series that has taken the platform by storm. This final episode of the series, released in theaters, comes with a nice little message about forgiving others for the bad things they’ve done. But some of the content issues here will make this a harder sell for preteens and younger.
Welcome to the circus, reader. You spawned in a bit late. Eight episodes of The Amazing Digital Circus have already released on YouTube and Netflix, and this movie is an early screening of the show’s finale.
But hey, that’s fine, let me get you all caught up:
Some time ago, a woman put on a VR headset. Next thing she knew, she found herself as an animated jester stuck in a virtual 3D circus, rendered in a 1990s computer art style. Then a ringleader named Caine—a set of chattering teeth who keeps his eyeballs inside said teeth and wears a top hat and sparkling suit—appeared to welcome her. The woman couldn’t remember her name, so Caine spun one up for her: Pomni.
Pomni tried to get that VR headset off. She really did. As did all of the other humans who showed up in the circus. None of them ever figured out how.
That’s why Pomni, along with fellow prisoners Ragatha, Jax, Gangle, Zooble and Kinger have been stuck enduring Caine’s horrible adventures for a long, long time. It’s enough to make someone eventually lose their mind—of course, the others warn Pomni against that, since if you do, you’ll abstract, turning into a glitching mindless monster that Caine will unceremoniously toss into the cellar to do whatever it is mindless monsters do.
As you may imagine, Pomni didn’t want that to happen. That’s why she, along with the others, have been searching for any sort of escape from their never-ending virtual nightmare.
And they may have found one:
Kinger—who appears as a king chess piece—got his hands on a computer, and he managed to delete Caine. Good news, since Caine had been torturing them particularly worse lately. The bad news, of course, is that when you get rid of the ringleader, a circus doesn’t just stop functioning …
It starts falling apart.
Despite their circumstances, the circus characters often rally together to care for each other, recognizing that they need one another to endure their trials. In spite of a dark and depressing moment that would threaten to isolate everyone, Pomni and Ragatha (the latter of whom looks like a Raggedy Ann doll) reaffirm their friendship with each other.
At one point, Pomni becomes overwhelmed with everything she and her friends must accomplish. But Kinger motivates her by reminding her that, though they won’t be able to fix every problem that comes their way, they can still do what they can, and these efforts should be enough.
A small theme throughout the film is the idea of forgiveness in spite of wicked deeds. There’s a recognition among the cast that they’ve all done evil things of which they’re ashamed, and so it would be hypocritical of them to ask forgiveness for their own failures without forgiving others, too (paralleling the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18). At one point, someone who describes himself as “a terrible person” cannot imagine why anyone cares about him—but he’s shown love and forgiveness anyway.
At the start of the movie, a fish character prays to Jesus by name to accept the deleted Caine into heaven. He also says that he was once medically dead for four minutes, during which he saw that there was nothing but blackness after death, and he takes this as a sign that God doesn’t want him. This causes him great distress.
Caine’s name is a reverse of the acronym ENIAC, the name of the first computer. However, another character in this series is named Abel, and elements of the biblical story of Cain and Abel are in the film: We see Caine as a fledgling AI, receiving inputs and offering back messy outputs. He’s trapped in a box by his developers, and a second AI—presumably Abel—replaces him, offering proper outputs. Caine breaks out of the box and strikes down this second AI, consuming it into himself.
Caine, recognizing the power he has over his human prisoners, calls himself “god” and states his “divinity is past infinity.” To stroke Caine’s ego, Ragatha makes a list of things the humans love about Caine as their “god and savior.” Someone else says that Caine created their virtual world from nothing. And when Caine considers humanity, he notes that it was humanity’s free will that made them alluring in the first place.
Kinger states that since they’re in a computer simulation, they can “conjure” things out of thin air. The characters develop this ability, and they use it to generate polygons to patch up holes in their world.
One character recalls that, in the real world, she dealt with strife because her parents were devout Mormons, and she wasn’t.
At one point, Caine sings that his prisoners “don’t need to scream if you don’t have a mouth”—a direct reference to the short story I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, depicting a sentient computer that perpetually tortures its five human subjects for eternity.
One of the trapped humans, Zooble, is an amalgamation of attachable and detachable blocks and parts, like a rejected Mr. Potato Head. We’re told that each character’s body was designed to match their mind files, and Zooble’s body is therefore meant to depict her identification as non-binary, allowing her to change herself as she sees fit. Others refer to Zooble with they/them pronouns. During one scene, her friend Jax wears a maid outfit, claiming he wants to wear it to honor Zooble’s “gender freakiness.”
Zooble and Gangle, two women trapped in the simulation, begin a relationship. In a scene during the credits, Ragatha passes Zooble’s room as hearts fly out of the doorway, causing Ragatha to blush and rush past, implying a sexual situation occurring inside.
When speaking about reality, Jax denounces reality as “gay.”
In a flashback, Kinger watches someone abstract and turn into one of those mindless monsters. Others deal with another character abstracting, too. Someone admits to accidentally killing another person in real life. Jax recounts emotional abuse at the hands of his real-life mother.
Caine assaults the trapped humans with attacks that, were they not in a virtual realm with wonky physics, would certainly be lethal: He stabs them with knives, shreds them, twists them into balloon animals, peels off their skin and blows them up—only for them to pop back, good as new, moments later. None of this seems to hurt them physically. However, if they touch someone or something that is abstracting, their bodies glitch, and this does cause them pain.
Jax chokes Pomni until she’s blue in the face, and then he releases her, laughing about how they can’t die from oxygen deprivation.
Caine enforces a strict “no swearing” censor on his prisoners. When they try, a physical censor bar blocks their mouths and bleeps out the word, including a handful of censored f- and s-words.
When Caine vanishes, so too does his censor. We hear one uncensored use of the s-word and well as two uses of “h—.” God’s name is used in vain nine times, including two instances paired with “d–n.”
Zooble practices bartending and mixes drinks for others.
Some of the characters, creatures and nihilistic statements within the film can be disturbing and may frighten young children.
If you head on over to the YouTube channel GLITCH, you’ll find that the pilot episode of The Amazing Digital Circus is the channel’s most popular video. As of posting, the pilot alone has been viewed 438 million times—and that doesn’t include the undisclosed numbers for the show on Netflix. That popularity makes the series the most-viewed independent animation pilot in YouTube history.
So popular is the series that its final episode (paired with its already released eighth episode) is being released in theaters and is projected to take nearly $10 million in its first weekend. That’s a pretty good haul for an episode that’ll release for free on YouTube and Netflix just a few weeks later.
That said, chances are you’re not reading this review if you’re already a fan of the series (and if you are, there’s little here that’ll surprise you). That said, parents being coaxed to the movie by their kids should keep in mind that this film showcases an AI that thinks of itself as a god, an LGBT relationship and gender fluidity, animated violence and a bit of crude language. And for details into the other episodes in this series, you can click this link to read our review.
Granted, the story here is interesting, and the beats can be heartfelt at times. But unlike Kaufmo the clown, the content considerations here are not abstract—and parents will want to weigh those before buying a ticket to this circus.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
