Secret Level review

Plot: A new adult-animated anthology series featuring original stories set within the worlds of some of the world’s most beloved video games. From the creative minds behind LOVE, DEATH + ROBOTS, each of the 15 episodes is a celebration of games and gamers.

Review: Deadpool director Tim Miller is a major animation supporter and spent a decade trying to bring a new feature film anthology based on the cult classic film Heavy Metal, based on the long-running magazine of the same name, to the big screen. When that project failed to come together, Miller helped develop Love, Death + Robots at Netflix, a concept similar to Heavy Metal but with a focus on contemporary animation styles. The three-volume animated anthology was popular with genre fans and had some cross-over appeal with mainstream audiences. Miller aims to reach a different subculture with animated shorts collected in the new Prime Video series Secret Level. Each of the fifteen short films in the series, which will debut with two films a week, is based on a popular video game. Secret Level is an ambitious and diverse mix of stories in various styles, with some source material debuting in the 1970s and others hitting computers and consoles just in the last few years. While some of the films are innovative, others are pretty generic and cliche-ridden, resulting in a series that is not nearly as cool as it could have been.

Having seen the entirety of Secret Level‘s first season, I enjoyed some more entries than others. While I have an affinity for some of the games and have never played others, I found that the episodes that worked better for me were the ones that tried to exist within the world of the game that inspired it. As the title alludes, Secret Level is designed to be viewed like chapters from video game universes not seen in the games themselves or experienced from a different vantage point. Most of the films in this volume of Secret Level have the unwieldy challenge of condensing the full mythology of a game into less than twenty minutes of running time, a daunting task for any short film. That means that some of these shorts end up feeling like little more than extended cut scenes rather than a well-rounded film that can be enjoyed on its own. Of course, fans of each specific game may enjoy the films more because it is a new foray into that world, but it is confusing for the average viewer.

While knowing the games is secondary to enjoying these shorts, the animation steals the show here. Aside from the film set in the world of Sifu, every Secret Level chapter uses photorealistic CGI. Most of the episodes have human characters with varying degrees of realistic visuals, with some chapters, namely the episodes based on The Outer Worlds, Mega Man, and Unreal Tournament, opting for a slightly more cartoonish look. In some episodes, the actor portraying the character is clearly a model for the animators, especially the Armored Core episode, which showcases an uncannily accurate avatar of Keanu Reeves and the New World film, which slightly alters the character of King Aelstrom from Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s youthful appearance. Most of the episodes have recognizable talent, including Kevin Hart, Claudia Doumit, Michael Beach, Temuera Morrison, and more. Still, most of the characters are not based on the actor’s physical appearance. The double-edged sword lies in the uncanny valley effect, which has diminished in the last decade as animation advances. However, there is still something a little off in how the photorealistic characters display facial expressions.

The short running time for each film ranges from seven minutes to almost twenty, but the length does not seem to be a determining quality factor. The Pac-Man film “Circle” clocks in at ten minutes and may be the best entry in Secret Level. By using the classic arcade game as a starting point, directors Victor Maldonado and Alfredo Torres craft a body horror story that is very far from pastel ghosts and eating round spheres. The Mega Man film, “Start”, also clocks in at less than ten minutes but feels like a tease of a longer film we never get. The Armored Core film “Asset Management” gives us a great performance from Keanu Reeves that is very different from what we usually see from the actor but also feels like it is part one of a longer movie. In contrast, the films inspired by The Outer Worlds and Warhammer 40,000 work without needing any context of the larger game narrative, while the Dungeons & Dragons, Unreal Tournament, and Crossfire films only work for those intimately familiar with the source material.

With a wide range of animation houses working on these shorts, including Digic Pictures, Platige Image, Illusorium, Unit Image, Blur Studio, and more, it is exciting to see a platform for animators outside the big studio productions. More than half of the series is written by J.T. Petty or Justin Rhodes, and creator and producer Tim Miller does not have a directorial or writing credit for any of the episodes. What is striking is that with over a dozen films included, Secret Level does not boast much variety in visual style or storytelling. The weakest episodes of Secret Level are the ones that do not do much besides painstakingly creating a world but fail to give it any life. The Crossfire film “Good Conflict” is a prime example, as it tells a story about mercenaries facing off against armed soldiers in a rain-soaked urban environment. It looks good, but the story is forgettable and unengaging. Others, like The Outer Worlds short “The Company We Keep,” exist within the world of the video game but forge a wholly original story that adds to the games without relying on them.

Secret Level is a cool concept that should have been much better than it is. Thankfully, each short film requires minimal investment, which may also contribute to what is so underwhelming about it. With technology allowing for video games to feature cutscenes that rival even big-budget movies, these films do not separate themselves from what video games have already done. A lot of the games that inspired these stories are first-person shooters, which makes telling an engaging story all the more difficult, with only a few succeeding. Many of the more recognizable video game franchises are too lucrative to have been fodder for Secret Level. Still, I could name two dozen games that would have been better jumping-off points for films in this anthology. For Secret Level to warrant a second volume of films, I would hope Tim Miller and his creative team would opt for a wider range of game styles and animation approaches to avoid every episode looking like guns, swords, and robots. He already made that series for Netflix.

Secret Level premieres with the first eight episodes starting December 10th on Prime Video with the remaining seven debuting on December 17th.