Secret Level, on Prime

"Live, die, repeat” was the tagline and Macguffin of Edge of Tomorrow, but it is just how things work in video games. Some of these animated short films cleverly incorporate that aspect of gameplay. Each original constituent film is set within the world of a popular game (including massively multiplayer online RPGs), but maybe not too popular, since their rights were still available. As is usually the case for anthologies, the results vary considerably in creator Tim Miller’s 15-part Secret Level, which premieres tomorrow on Prime Video.

There is a lot of CGI, featuring human depictions that try and most often fail to traverse the uncanny valley. As a result, some of the less “realistic” looking films stand out more. The opener, “Dungeons & Dragons: The Queen’s Cradle” is a perfect example of the CGI look that will quickly grow repetitive. However, the story written by Brooke Bolander certainly delivers on its promise of dragons. It is also one of the more successful at character establishment. However, the cliffhanger-style ending feels like a bit of a cheat (which too, will be a recurring response throughout Secret Level).

The next two constituent films are also two of the best. “Sifu: It Takes a Life,” directed by Laszlo Ruska with a story credited to Rich Larson is a mystical martial arts beatdown, in which our hero takes on a brutal gang to avenge his grandfather, even if it kills him, repeatedly, just so long as he still has one of his lives signified by a string of gold coins left after the carnage.

“New World: The Once and Future King,” written by JT Petty & Philip (The Spine of Night) Gelatt, is by far the funniest, thanks to voiceover work of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who gamely satirizes his own action image while providing the voice of the hapless King Aelstrom. The entitled idiot intended to conquer the kingdom of Aeternum, but since the land there bestows eternal life, it creates a meritocracy among residents, leaving him ill-equipped maintain the status he expects by birthright.

“Unreal Tournament: Xan” looks very much like many other Secret Level mini-sodes. The hook here is that it openly invites viewers to root for the “rise of the machines” and against humanity when the evil Gamemaster (voiced by Elodie Yung) condemns a group of rebellious androids to a series of gladiatorial games against humans. Doesn’t that just sound like a really bad idea?

The lowest point probably comes in “Warhammer 40,000: And They Shall Know No Fear,” in which a group of space-faring marines are dispatched on a mission that is almost impossible to follow, because the animation is so confusing.

If you are expecting anything like the old Saturday morning cartoon from Victor (Nocturna) Maldonado & Alfredo Torres’ “PAC-MAN: Circle,” you will be shocked. In this case, it an extremely dark allegorical take on the classic arcade game. The ambition here is impressive, but your nostalgia will be dashed to smithereens, so temper your expectations.

Damian (Another Day of Life) Nenow’s “Crossfire: Good Conflict” is a refreshing change of pace, partly because it is the only short that does not incorporate any science fiction or fantastical elements. It also tells a fully self-contained and satisfying story, while maintaining a high degree of ambiguity regarding the why’s of everything. There is also a whole heck of a lot of shooting.

“Armored Core: Asset Management,” based on a Peter Watts story, also feels very similar to the “Unreal Tournament” and “Warhammer 40,000” episodes, but it is easier to follow and features stronger characters. It has the benefit of Keanu Reeves as a broken down mecha pilot who still thinks he has the right stuff. The mecha-action is very video game-like, but that hardly counts as a criticism for a series like this. Wisely, the animators also deliberately modeled the pilots features on Reeve’s, which should please his fans.

Iron Mask: The Russian-Chinese Co-Production Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger

Do You remember the Nikolai Gogol story about the Kung Fu warriors fighting to liberate the dragon who served as the ancient guardian of China’s tea supply? Neither would he. He wouldn’t know Jonathan Green either, the protagonist of Forbidden Empire, the 2014 film vaguely but still recognizably based on his novella, Viy. Green returns, traveling from Czarist Russia to Qing Dynasty China in Oleg Stepchenko’s Russian-Chinese co-production Iron Mask (a.k.a. Viy 2: Journey to China, a.k.a. Journey to China: The Mystery of the Iron Mask), which releases tomorrow on DVD.

Iron Mask should not be confused with Dumas either, but there is a royal stuck inside a piece of iron head-gear. In this case, it is Peter the Great, Emperor of All Russia, imprisoned in the Tower of London. He shares a cell with the Master, a mysterious Chinese warrior, who has sort of taught him Kung Fu. The Master was the leader of a brotherhood serving the patron dragon of China’s tea-producing region, where dark forces have now taken control.

Ironically, that is where Green is headed. He had a tough scrape in Moscow, but the British ambassador managed to facilitate his release from prison, with the expectation the phony Czar’s assassin would permanently silence him. However, Cheng Lan, the Master’s protégé, protects him, while maintaining the guise of a man (Mulan-style). When Green’s wife gets wind of the situation, she helps the Czar escape from the Tower, so they can travel to China, to defeat the imposter witch-queen, fraudulently ruling in the Dragon’s name, exactly the way Gogol would have written it, if he thought Viy needed a Kung Fu-fantasy sequel.

Just trying to write a brief synopsis of Iron Mask is a handy exercise for putting the illogical randomness of the plot into perspective. To make things even nuttier, James Hook, the warden of the Tower of London is played by Austrian Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he doesn’t sound so conspicuously out of place in the Russian and Mandarin dubs.

Forbidden Empire was an inconsistent mess, but it still hung together as a whole better than Iron Mask. On the other hand, Iron Mask boasts more entertaining highlights. Stepchenko and the producers are shrewd enough to deliver a fight scene between their two action icons: Jackie Chan and Schwarzenegger, as the Master and Hook, respectively. It is pretty good fight scene—and the climatic storming-the-castle sequence is definitely cool. A lot of credit goes to Helen Yao Xingtong, who shows off some terrific action chops as Cheng Lan and the imposter witch.

Killing Gunther: Don’t Stop with Him

When you think about it, hitmen are really serial killers who get paid for it. Nevertheless, the movie business likes to romanticize them. This is shaping up to be a bumper year for hitmen comedies. If you want to watch something smart and challenging, check out Kills on Wheels. If you’re in the mood for something dumb but funny, the surprise hit Hitman’s Bodyguard is probably still around. It looks like collaboration between Preston Sturges and Noel Coward compared to Taran Killam’s dumb but excruciatingly unfunny Killing Gunther (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Blake is a whiny, self-absorbed hitman, who is determined to leap-frog to the top of his industry by taking out the long-reigning top dog, Robert Bendik, a.k.a. Gunther. To do so, he recruits a team of top professionals, including Donnie the demolitions expert, Sanaa the femme fatale sniper, a pair of creepy Russian siblings, and Yong, a useless poisoner. They try to set up Gunther with a phony contract, but he still has the drop on them. Inevitably, the hunters become the hunted. We will see the tables turn mockumentary-style, thanks to the documentary crews the two rival hitmen have convinced at gunpoint to capture their shenanigans.

Right now, you’re probably wondering who is Taran Killam? In the short run, the answer is one of those blandly disposable former SNL cast-members. Judging from this film, the long-term answer is he’s nobody. As Blake, Killam is just an offensively boring man-child. If he gave you the choice of documenting his every move on camera or a bullet to the head, you would probably say: “double tap me now.” However, if you want unrepentant shtick than brother, does Arnold Schwarzenegger ever deliver. It is down-right depressing watching his gas-bag gags involving country & western crooning and lederhosen.

As Sanaa, Hannah Simone is about the only cast-member who shows any dignity and screen presence during the film. Yet, Killam cannot resist undercutting her with awkward jokes involving her fanatically over-protective Iranian father Rahmat. Cobie Smulders doesn’t get much chance to exercise her comedy chops as Lisa McCalla, the ex-girlfriend of both Blake and Gunther, but that also means she gets through the movie relatively unscathed (watch her work in the weirdly underappreciated Slammin’ Salmon instead).

After fifteen minutes, you’ll want to take a contract out on this movie. Gunther causes genuine pain and we are not talking about ribs that are sore from laughing. However, it should lead to an upward critical reappraisal of Hitman’s Bodyguard, a mere two months after its initial release. Just plain sad, Killing Gunther opens today (10/20) in New York, at the Village East.

Tribeca ’15: Maggie

The zombie apocalypse has come, but the everyday mundane rituals of life continue. For instance, NPR is still broadcasting (and providing exposition), which is about as dull and trivial as life gets. The cities are like demilitarized zones, but those who reside in the countryside continue on relatively undisturbed—unless one of their family members is infected. A rugged Iowa farmer with an Austrian accent must deal with his daughter’s painful transition, ominously known as “the turn,” in Henry Hobson’s Maggie (trailer here), opening this Friday in New York, following its world premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

Like many infected teens, Maggie Vogel ran off to the big city rather than putting her family through the pain of her turn. Checking into one of the nightmarish government field hospitals is not an option, but unfortunately that is where she is forcibly detained until her father finds her. While she is still lucid, she will have time to make her goodbyes to family and friends, but it clearly will not be easy.

Maggie always adored her twin step-brother and step-sister and got on reasonably well with her step-mother. However, Caroline Vogel’s top priority is clearly protecting the twins, which creates friction with Wade. The local sheriff and his jerkweed deputy are also anxious to whisk Maggie back into custody, but it is hard argue with a man the size of Wade Vogel, who is holding a shotgun. Vogel obviously intends to cling to every last hope and does not care what some county employee thinks about it. However, Maggie Vogel is only too aware of the reality of her situation, because she can see it in the mirror.

There have already been a number of anti-genre deconstructions of the zombie film, such as BBC America’s post-zombie cure series In the Flesh and the Canadian feature The Returned, so Maggie’s focus on the intimate human drama of the zombie uprising is not so unusual anymore. Still, Hobson (the title design for The Walking Dead) and screenwriter John Scott 3 carve out a small niche, where zombies are contained (more or less), but not cured. Still, what makes Maggie work so well is the first rate cast.

Believe it or not, that starts with Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is finally the sort of film he should be pursuing for his post-politics return to the big screen. Let’s face it, he was a disappointing governor who just continued all the fiscal problems he promised to stop, but he still has an awful lot of accrued good will with movie fans. Up until Last Action Hero he was batting nearly one thousand, if we make allowances for Red Sonja. He has a reassuring screen presence that gives comfort and inspires confidence. As Vogel, he is able to build on that reservoir of good feeling, creating a surprisingly tender portrait of a father facing the unthinkable.

As the titular Maggie, Abigail Breslin gives a refreshingly smart and subtle performance, conveying a powerful sense of how quickly she has grown up as she faces her fate. Although she is likely to be overlooked, Joely Richardson is also terrific as the step-mother trying her best, despite her very human failings. In fact, it is the intelligent, heartfelt rendering of the Vogel family dynamics that really elevates Maggie.

Yes, Wade Vogel kills a handful of zombies, but the film is highly likely to disappoint fans expecting a vintage 1980s Schwarzenegger film. However, it suggests he might be able to pull off a third act comeback, after all. Appropriately moody and shockingly touching, Maggie is highly recommended for sophisticated genre fans when it opens this Friday (5/8) in select theaters, following its premiere screenings at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.