Levels

Interesting concept, the movie was a bit slow to get to the really interesting parts, and spent way too little time exploring the full potential of what was possible. I blame the budget for the budget for this. That being said, the film as watchable. I wold also want to add that the entire idea was a bit derivative, but also had its own unique twist. A movie version of platos allegory of the cave, are we real? Are our dreams real?

At some point these matrix like remakes will get it jst right and create something that will shine a new light on exitence as a whole.

I particularly liked the perfomance of David Hewlett, I have liked his roles ever since Stargate Atlantis. He was the main reason I kept watching. The lead female role was also done well. CGI could have been better.

Good acting, interesting premise, good special effects (for it's budget) this movie has it all except that it is utterly boring. It's like Free Guy after they sucked every ounce of fun out of it. Cara Gee (the Expanse) couldn't save this movie from being bland but she is definitely a good watching point. The premise is interesting and while we have seen similar premises in Free Guy, Matrix and Inception we have never seen this exact premise in any movie that I know of. It could be a very interesting movie but it failed. I am being generous giving it 5 stars because it was made competently but it is so boring and after you know what is going on then it is just unbearable to watch and the final twist doesn't make up for it even though it's quite clever. This movie is barely watchable once, I would never sit through it a second time.

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.

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.

Welcome to the future, where everything is computerized but Siri still sounds like a computer from the 80's. I almost turned off the movie solely based on that annoying Siri voice.

"Levels" is the brainchild of Adam Stern and I think would do fairly good as a book, but here the casting is just horrible, it seems like they just took the first two actors that were available and the pacing of the movie is too slow and gets really boring at parts. The actors are not horrible, but here their performance is flat, and their chemistry is non-existent.

Adam Stern's got some hurdles to overcome before he can deliver a real blockbuster. For now, it's a niche indie film, likely drawing in Cara Gee fans from The Expanse, but unlikely to reach a broader audience.

Watch if you are a hardcore indie/sci-fi fan, I don't think I would recommend this otherwise it's just a dull watch. Exact score: 44 / 100.