In London, the gamer Matt spends most of his time on the couch playing videogame while his wife Anna is working, generating friction between them. One morning, Anna has breakfast and goes to the work and a moment after, three masked thieves break in the apartment and dress a vest with a package in Matt and give a cell phone to him. He is informed that Anna has been kidnapped and receives instructions to go to a mall and deliver the package to a man named Dmitri. The man also tells that if he seeks help, Anna will be killed. But Matt fails and is hunted down while receives new bizarre instructions along the day.

"Level Up" is a predictable thriller inspired in "The Game" and fast-paced as "Run Lola Run". However the stupid story is annoying and never exciting. The Brazilian title is a spoiler. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Jogo" ("The Game")

The gamer references run a lot beyond the title. And for a while we're prompted to toy with the idea that Matt was recruited due to his online prowess (think The Last Starfighter's Robert Preston recruiting for ISIS instead of the Star League). Although the story is very predictable, Director Adam Randall keeps the action very tightly paced and the dialogue to a refreshing minimum, helping to heighten Matt's growing isolation. That's enough to earn Level Up a decent review .

I don't even know where to begin.

The premise is ok, yet seen many times But in this movie, it is executed very poorly

The main flaw is the same as in Nerve (2016),which has a similar plot. There is NO WAY something like this could exist without the police noticing it, or someone denouncing it.

Another major flaw is in the begining. Bad guys say they kidnap the girlfriend. So Matt takes his phone and tries to call her, but no answer. We learn later in the movie that it was a lie all along, and that the girlfriend has been at work the whole time. What a bad luck! Had the grilfriend answer her phone, or just send a simple text message during the day, it would have crushed the whole movie.

The behaviour of the main character also makes no sense. During the whole film, he disobeys the instructions, risking his girlfriend's life. So why not call the police?

The worst scene is when he goes in a restaurant and finds a laptop with the whole stuff, the website, the streaming, the viewers commenting...etc. Then he runs away. Geez, just take the bloody laptop to the police!

The ending gives almost no answers but we saw it coming. Who were the kidnappers? How and why do they do this? We won't know...

Overall: an already-seen movie, but badly executed, with too many inconsistencies to take it seriously.