Levels

Joe (Peter Mooney) seems to be jumping from world to world. He encounters Ash (Cara Gee), Hunter (Aaron Abrams), Oliver (David Hewlett), and a gun. The first thirty minutes are a confusing bore. Then comes the long info dump. It's not a good way to start and connect with these characters. For this sci-fi indie, the writing is the problem. There is no advantage to leaving the reveal late in the process. It needs to explain this world sooner. In the end, it doesn't sound wild enough. The acting is pretty good for a lower budget sci-fi. The special effects are fine. The movie probably lost me in the first 30 minutes.

Other reviews contrasting this Canadian production (presumably lower budget, but unsurprisingly good acting) with Free Guy and Matrix aren't wrong, but what we see with this entry into that universe is not only visually appealing (all three films have had mind-bending special effects), but shows a bit of heart and soul. It feels less mass produced. So what was needed was a bit more work on the development of the characters, a bit more plot development. I acknowledge the criticism of another reviewer that the exposition feels a bit dogmatic, but davka (actually, for me) that is necessary for the precious little character development we do have here, so I wouldn't have edited that out. Rather, I'd have added to the run-time a bit, to flesh out all of the characters, precisely because, in a digital universe, personality and individuality begins to matter in this one. Perhaps...our choices do matter.

Whilst the script could have used refinement, some of the visual gimmicks were heavy handed, at the heart of this story is real substance. Unlike a lot of Hollywood movies, especially in genre adjacent stuff, this movie feels like it has a genuine human element as well as a sort of wistful philosophy befitting the subject material.

The special effects are beyond what one would expect from a low budget, and indeed so is the acting, which successfully sells the premise. On the downside there's a little too much exposition and as mentioned before reliance on visual gimmicks.

But where you can watch most blockbuster movies and feel like you've been exposed to no real new ideas, or effected by the premise, the heart this movie has makes the sci-fi experience more personal - as science fiction should be, a reflection of our human experience.

All told, worth a watch IMO.

For Sci-Fi fans, you may watch It... for regular folks, I'd say skip It.

I did like this movie a bit, but a lot of scenes don't have Impact as It should have been (could have been elevated by editing or camera movements)

The movie pacing In this one is just slow and boring sometimes...

While some fighting scenes I did like (It wasnt very over the top)... Some dialogue Is well crafted.

The plot Is a mess and full of plot holes... It starts to lose any sense at the end.

While this movie budget was small, the CGI mostly did It's job... but It's still 'modern' world.

This movie is like a Matrix but made by Indie and with less Impact.

The actors except for a few exceptions are solid, sadly one of them is the lead.

It started off fine, a bit of mystery, until about 20% in where they dump all the info about what is really happening.

The writer definitely does not read any Scifi, because out of all the possibilities this has got to be the lamest story lines I could imagine, as soon as I realised there is nothing clever the movie really went down hill.

Its basically just sims, crossed with the Matrix with a bit of action on top. All comes off as a very poor rip of some aspects of the Matrix without any of its depth. We even have a bit of "bullet time" special effects.

They ignored the "show dont tell" which would have made the movie better. And exactly why you should care about a game of sims as some sort of crime against humanity is just ridiculous.