‘Levels’ Review
Stars: Peter Mooney, Amanda Tapping, Cara Gee, Sydney Sabiston, Jade Ma, Aaron Abrams, David Hewlett | Written and Directed by Adam Stern
It’s a seemingly normal morning for Joe (Peter Mooney; The Prodigy, Burden of Truth), his digital assistant MEL (Amanda Tapping; Stargate SG-1, Woodland) wakes him up after preparing his condo for him. It also tells him his girlfriend Ash (Cara Gee; The Expanse, Bones of Crows) wants to meet him for coffee, something that spurs a flashback to their first meeting. He tells MEL to send Maxine (Sydney Sabiston; Time Cut, Sniper: Rogue Mission) a message that she’ll be running the store until he arrives and sets out to meet Ash.
When she arrives, Ash is noticeably nervous and says she has to tell him something. She says she loves him and manages to get as far as saying that she’s not from here before a man walks up and shoots her in the head. Joe chases him, but he seems to disappear in a dead-end alley.
Two weeks later he hasn’t left his apartment and even MEL is worried about him. And she should be, he’s decided to kill himself, except the gun won’t shoot him. It will shoot out a window, though, but his attempt to jump to his death fails as well. And then he gets a message from Ash.
While Levels at first seems to be a near-future conspiracy thriller, effects artist (Apollo 18, Ghost Wars) turned writer/director Adam Stern soon takes things to a whole new level. It seems reality, or at least Joe’s reality, isn’t what it seems to be. However we should have been questioning that when we saw what kind of apartment he could afford as the owner of a bookstore that never seems to have any customers.
If this sounds like a collection of ideas from The Matrix, The 13th Floor and TRON, you’re not entirely wrong. There’s even a character played by Jade Ma (1 Million Followers, Black Widow) whose look and outfits are modelled on Carrie Anne Moss’s character Trinity from The Matrix and its sequels. However, since Levels had less than a blockbuster budget, don’t expect wall-to-wall action or fancy effects, although the VFX team does manage to spice things up enough to help sell the film’s near-future setting, world within a world setting.
Unfortunately, despite characters constantly talking about the morality of shutting down the simulation and wiping out its population, Levels really doesn’t have much in the way of answers. I would have hoped, with AI becoming a part of many people’s day-to-day lives, that the script might have had a fresh perspective. But it never really gets much deeper than the good guys saying “They’re people!” and Hunter (Aaron Abrams; Children Ruin Everything, From Jennifer), the villainous CEO, saying his profits matter more.
It’s too bad because coming to grips with that central concept and having a more up-to-date approach to the concept could have helped to get Levels out from under the shadow of its better-known predecessors. Instead, it feels like an attempt to do a budget-conscious version of them. Granted, as sci-fi on a budget goes it’s not bad, the main cast, which also includes David Hewlett (Midway, Nightmare Alley) as the enigmatic Oliver, are all good in their roles. The limited effects and action scenes are solid, as are the rest of the tech credits.
Overall, if you’re looking for some light entertainment, Levels is an OK way to kill ninety minutes. It’s just too bad it didn’t go a little deeper into the concepts it professes to care so much about.
*** 3/5
Levels is available in theatres and on VOD and Digital Platforms in the US via RLJ Entertainment, and in Canada from Vortex Media.
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