Review: ‘Levels’ (2024), starring Cara Gee, Peter Mooney, Aaron Abrams and David Hewlett

January 14, 2025

by Carla Hay

Peter Mooney and Cara Gee in “Levels” (Photo courtesy of RLJE Films)

“Levels” (2024)

Directed by Adam Stern

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed North American city, the sci-fi dramatic film “Levels” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one Asian person) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A man tries to solve the mystery of why his “dead” girlfriend is contacting him from another dimension.

Culture Audience: “Levels” will appeal mainly to people who don’t mind watching low-quality sci-fi movies.

Aaron Abrams in “Levels” (Photo courtesy of RLJE Films)

Everything about the sci-fi clunker “Levels” is mishandled and poorly made. It’s a jumbled mess of bad ideas about a man, his girlfriend, multiverse dimensions, and artificial intelligence. This forgettable flop has no intelligence, artificial or otherwise.

Written and directed by Adam Stern, “Levels” is his feature-film directorial debut. Unfortunately, “Levels” is so amateurly made (despite having an ambitious concept), the movie is filled with a lot of mistakes that are often in movies from first-time feature directors. Among those mistakes is trying to cram in too many ideas in a flimsy plot. As a result, everything falls apart in the story, long before the movie is over.

In “Levels ” (which takes place in an unnamed North American city and was filmed in Canada), a man named Joe (played by Peter Mooney) witnesses his girlfriend Ash (played by Cara Gee) get gunned down right in front of him. The murderer, who runs away before being caught, is a man named Anthony Hunter (played by Aaron Abrams), whose backstory is revealed much later in the movie. At the time of the murder, Joe doesn’t know anything about this killer except what the killer looks like.

Joe falls into a deep depression and attempts suicide by shooting himself with a gun. The gun doesn’t work when it’s pointed at him, but the gun works when it’s pointed at objects. Joe discovers the reason why, later in the movie. After this suicide attempt, Joe finds a new purpose in his life when he is unexpectedly contacted by Ash on a video monitor in his home. Ash says she “died” in the world where Joe exists, but she is now living in another reality dimension.

Ash asks Joe for his help so that they could possibly reunite. She wants him to pick up a package at a local bookstore. Joe readily agrees. The rest of “Levels” is just time-wasting junk about Joe trying to reunite with Ash and trying to find her murderer. A local newsstand owner named Oliver Hunter (played by David Hewlett) plays a pivotal role in the story. “Levels” is just an onslaught of terrible acting and cringeworthy filmmaking. The only level this movie is on is “bottom of the barrel.”

RLJE Films released “Levels” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on November 1, 2024.

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