Watching the trailer for Upgrade, one gets the impression it’s intended to be an action/comedy revenge flick. In fact, it’s an intense sci-fi/horror thriller. The trailer reveals the basic premise. Bad guys paralyze protagonist Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) and kill his wife, Asha (Melanie Vallejo). Tech genius Eron (Harrison Gilbertson) implants a computer chip called STEM (Simon Maiden) in Grey’s neck that allows him to walk again and that can, when instructed, act autonomously. With his newly regained mobility, Grey sets out to find the men who ruined his life.
Written and directed by Leigh Whannell, the film runs a tight hour and forty minutes and effectively uses every minute to build a compelling world and develop Grey as a character. Set in the near future, Upgrade unfolds in a place where high tech digital devices coexist with current-world analog. The movie opens with Grey rebuilding the engine of a muscle car in his garage as Asha arrives home in a self-driving autonomous vehicle.
The theme of analog vs digital is ingeniously explored as Grey and STEM pursue the murderers. STEM is an artificial intelligence with complete mastery of the digital world, but it cannot detect or influence analog devices. Grey, on the other hand, is wary of digital tech and avoids it whenever possible. The interaction between digital AI and analog man, highlighting the strengths and limitations of both, is brilliantly executed.
Strong performances by Logan Marshall-Green and Simon Maiden sell the concept of hybrid man/AI. The pair have real chemistry despite Maiden’s role being limited to STEM’s disembodied voice. Marshall-Green convincingly shifts his posture, movements, and mannerisms as control of Grey’s body switches between Grey’s brain and STEM. The audience can easily tell who’s running the show even when neither are speaking.
Unlike many sci-fi films these days, Upgrade is not dominated by jarring CGI. Most of the settings are gritty and very real. The few “sanitized” high-tech areas are that way for a reason, and they stand out from the rest of the film. There are plenty of effects, to be sure, but none of them are superfluous, and most of the high tech devices look like something that someone might actually build. The cartoon-like slickness that plagues so much modern CGI is thankfully absent.
The film’s strongest feature, though, has to be the story-telling. Much of the script is a standard revenge arc, but there are enough deviations to keep the audience off balance. The tension relentlessly builds. As the climax approaches, the story can easily go in any of several directions, and, even to the genre-savvy, it is not at all apparent which path the script will take. In the final minutes, I found myself thinking “Oh my God, I don’t know how this is going to end!” I actually had a tightness in my gut. It’s been a long time since I truly didn’t know how things were going to turn out and, at the same time, was invested enough in the characters to really care. That kind of visceral response to a film has become all too rare in recent years.
A strong script, good acting, excellent direction, and effective use of practical-looking CGI make Upgrade well worth the price of admission and your time.
Overall rating: 8.5/10