"Offline - Das Leben ist kein Bonuslevel" or "Offline: Are You Ready for the Next Level?" or just "Offline" is a new German movie from 2016 and this one was written and directed by Florian Schnell. It was his first full feature work after some short films and the outcome is sadly pretty bad. One reason is that lead actor Moritz Jahn fails completely and comes even short playing a character who does not require great range. His co-lead Mala Emde is definitely better, but she also has some weak moments, some of them due to the script. Admittedly her gorgeous looks made up for that and the blue hair looks great on her. I saw her in other films and she was way better there, so maybe she did not do herself a great favor by accepting this role here. The core of the film is on mixing video games (fantasy) with real life and make a film out of this combination that succeeds on the dramatic level as well as the comedic level. It doesn't even come close in any of these areas which makes the way in which the film takes itself seriously pretty cringeworthy to watch at times and the comedy definitely has an aura of try-hard to it because it never seems natural. This is the consequence of, among other things, the mix of video game world and characters feeling really bumpy from start to finish. Also I found it difficult to cheer for the protagonist at all as I never saw him as the likable nerd the film was trying to depict him as. And well the ending is pretty feel-good for the sake of it too. I think the film is tolerable early on, but gets even worse in the second half why I need to be even harsher with my rating because honestly the longer it went the more it felt like a bad lets play video with all the video game scenes. The Ragnarök achievement plot sure did not work out at all and as it is one of the central components of the film it is another area where the failure really hurts the movie as a whole. A lot about this movie is over the top, but not in a good way. I also don't understand why Youtube people with almost no acting talent (sorry Sarazar) get cast in movies. Oh well, I guess it is to get their millions of subscribers to watch the movie. I guess that's all from me now and I really hope that Schnell can step things up in the future because otherwise I cannot really see him having a long career. His film here is indeed as bad as the German and English long titles suggest: RTL television level.
