Film Review: 'Next Level'

The Next Level all-female performing arts program is a competitive one, with all the young performers vying for the title of "Miss Next Level." Among those hopefuls is repeat winner Cindy Stallings (Emily Skinner), who is intent on landing another win as part of her plan to become the world's next pop star. New to the academy is Kelly Hatcher (Lauren Orlando), a talented singer whose rebellious attitude has gotten her kicked out of three other performing art programs.

With Cindy and Kelly becoming new roommates, a rivalry is quickly formed between the polar opposite girls just in time for the competition to begin. Led by Next Level graduate Jasmine Joel (Chloe Lukasiak), Cindy, Kelly, and the other members of Next Level bring their all to the stage. But with rivalries, insecurities, and a neighboring sports camp getting thrown into the chaos of competition, what kind of drama is sure to emerge and who will walk away as the new Next Level champion?

Ooh, MarVista, it would appear we're both falling back into the dark ages when it comes to the movies you're picking up. First, there was that lackluster Lifetime kidnapping film from about a week ago, and now here I am, reviewing this clinker of a teen drama. To best describe Next Level, imagine what would happen if you put the High School Musical and Step Up films into a blender, and then strained out any charm or fun (intentional or otherwise) from the ensuing concoction. When the film opened with a grating pop punk song that sounds like it should be the theme song for a second-rate Disney Channel kidcom, my hopes for Next Level were drastically lowered—and the film delivered on those lowered expectations.

Since I've already gotten into the songs, I might as well continue into a notable blunder: For a film with such a focus on music, it seems an odd choice to have your cast lip sync over autotuned-to-hell-and-back tracks rather than show off their pipes. This proves a big mistake for a few reasons:

1. It's painfully obvious in some cases that the voices we're hearing aren't coming from the character singing.

2. The lip sync varies from passable to downright embarrassing, with a notably laughable moment being when a character outright stops singing to sign an autograph and the song continues without them.

and 3. The overly processed nature of the music makes it hard to care who will win or get attached to any of the performers. With each song having the same generic pop feel and being performed in the same "polished music video" style, hardly any of the performances stand out as unique.

The characters are similarly uninspired, with not one character emerging as anything other than a tired cliche. If you've seen any teen film revolving around a competition, you know who to expect: the snarky and rebellious heroine, the Mean Girl rival, the quirky best friend, the handsome love interest. Throughout the film, no one is given the chance to develop beyond their stereotype—even characters who we spend most of the movie following. Despite being our lead character, we never get to know Kelly as anything other than the underdog heroine. We never get to know what set her on her rebellious streak (a character trait that is more or less an informed one, given how we hardly see her act that way apart from her snipe-offs with Cindy), and her generic songs don't give much of an impression of who she is either. She's just a blank slate of a character, and Lauren Orlando's often stiff performance doesn't help matters.

Stiff can be used to describe quite a lot of the performances, with Hayden Summerall and Chloe Lukasiak showing this off the worst (not that their flat characters and dialogue give them much to work with). It says a lot when one of the more energized performances of the movie—Jamie Grace as the coach of the basketball camp—is only one screen for less than a minute. That's not to say the cast is completely devoid of anything good. Brooke Elizabeth Butler has a nice character arc as Cindy's put-upon, not-so-mean minion Becky, and is notable as the first main character to make me feel anything other than boredom (and is also responsible for Orlando's strongest moment of the film). Ellarose Kaylor is sweet enough as Kelly's designated quirky and encouraging 7-year-old BFF Josie, with the friendship being carried well by Kaylor and Orlando's chemistry, and Chloe East brings authenticity to her role as shy Goth Lucy—though the romantic subplot she's given is rushed and unnecessary at best and tone-deaf and creepy at worst. Lastly, Emily Skinner does her best at making Cindy Stallings an arrogant and self-important bully who is as catty as she is genuinely cruel, though her efforts are diminished by her character being as unexplored as Kelly's, which in turn, makes her character arc's conclusion feel rushed.

As you can imagine at this point, the story of Next Level is hardly any less cliche than its characters, with every plot point being something that teen competition films has done before—and has done before better. SPOILER ALERT The film has the egregious "honor" of featuring two cliches that I have never been a fan of and which are done extremely poorly here: the "Third Act Misunderstanding" in the third act (which not only has little impact on the plot, but also requires Kelly to take the word of the girl who has done nothing but torment her over a guy who has been nothing but supportive of her since they met), and the conclusion which has the remorselessly awful Cindy suddenly turn around and make nice with everyone after a brief "You're Better Than You Think You Are" pep-talk from Jasmine. Spoilers Over

Some of the cast attempt to string something entertaining out of the cookie cutter characters they're stuck with, and out of all the singers in the film, Orlando is the one whose performance at least feels a bit authentic (as if a powerful singing voice was just bubbling under the surface of all that autotune). But as a whole, the sub-par musical performances, flat acting, paint-by-numbers story, and meandering plot make Next Level the sort of film that you watch and forget about half an hour later. With what little good it has being drowned out by the bad, Next Level can join Wrong Swipe at the bottom of the MarVista Entertainment barrel.

Score: 1 out of 10 impromptu dodgeball matches.