UPGRADE
Logan Marshall-Green as Grey Trace / Betty Gabriel as Cortez / Harrison Gilbertson as Eron / Linda Cropper as Pamela / Richard Cawthorne as Serk / Christopher Kirby as Manny / Benedict Hardie as Fisk / Melanie Vallejo as Asha / Written and directed by Leigh Whannell |
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The futuristic science fiction thriller UPGRADE is made up of a considerable number of regurgitated thematic parts from countless other past efforts in the genre in terms of man's symbiotic, but strained relationship with machines and AI technology. It also contains obligatory elements of the revenge thriller thrown in for good measure that we're all seen before. Yet, it's what
UPGRADE does with these well worn elements that ultimately makes it feel
novel and invigorating, which is welcome in this day and age of
overstuffed and charm-free blockbusters. Directed with spirited ingenuity by Leigh Whannell (who was
one of the creative minds behind the SAW and INSIDIOUS horror franchises), UPGRADE
has an ultra low micro budget of under $5 million (which wouldn't cover
the catering on a TRANSFORMERS
film), but it miraculously looks twenty times its cost, and its strong
production artifice is married to a thanklessly decent lead performance
that grounds everything nicely. The best way I
could possible describe this ultra violent and joyously pulpy sci-fi
melodrama is to say that it cherry picks - with enthusiasm - various
elements from THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN, DEATH WISH, and an awful lot of
ROBOCOP, albeit with a few nifty twists and turns.
The aspects of a lone man that has lost his wife due to horrible
criminal circumstances echoes the aforementioned films of Charles Bronson,
but because UPGRADE also takes place in the future and involves the
assimilation of man and machine, more than a few reverberations of ROBOCOP will, no doubt, stick out like proverbial sore thumbs.
Both UPGRADE and the iconic 1987 Paul Verhoeven helmed film share
many commonalities in terms of containing central plots about a
protagonist that's been emotionally and physically destroyed, but finds a
new lease on life because modern machine and computer technology has saved
him...and given him the ability to be fully functional again, but with some troublesome caveats.
UPGRADE doesn't work quite so well as a scathing piece of social
commentary the way ROBOCOP did, but it sure makes up for its lack of
thoughtful exploration of its themes with its infectious and well oiled
B-grade eccentricities. That,
and Whannell has some exceedingly clever stylistic tricks up his sleeves to
help segregate his film apart from others. Grey Trace
(played by Tom Hardy lookalike Logan Marshall Green) is a stay-at-home
mechanic of the not-to One evening Grey
asks Asha to help him deliver a restored muscle car to one of his most
affluent clients, Eron Keen (young Leonardo DiCaprio lookalike Harrison
Gilbertson), a powerful technology industrialist that is poised
to lead the next revolution in computer augmentation.
He reveals to Grey and Asha his latest invention, a special AI
chip called "Stem", which can be fused to the human brain.
On the way home from their meeting tragedy strikes when the
automated car that Grey and Asha drive home in horribly malfunctions and
crashes in a particularly seedy area, which leads to a group of unknown
assailants shooting Asha dead and leaving poor Grey paralyzed. He's
forced to watch his wife bleed to death. Months go by and
Grey returns home, but now as a wheelchair prone quadriplegic.
Beyond being incapable of physically looking after himself, Grey is
further tormented by the inability of a local detective (GET
OUT's Betty Gabriel) to identify, locate, and apprehend Asha's
killers...and all in spite of having access to the most powerful drone
technology the world has known. After
sinking deeper and deeper into depression, Grey hits rock bottom, but is
saved, so to speak, with a visit from Eron, who offers him a chance for
physical rebirth if he allows Stem to be implanted in his brain and spine, allowing him to walk again. After
some initial reluctance, Grey agrees, but only if he signs a
confidentiality agreement with Enron to never reveal the surgery details
to anyone. Now, here's where
the film gets interesting. The surgery
succeeds, and Grey does regain full power over his muscles and limbs and
is able to walk again. Unfortunately, Eron has shrewdly left out some very specific
details about Stem, like the fact that it contains a sentient Hal-9000-like
computer that can talk to Grey in his head.
Even more thorny is the fact that Stem reveals to Grey that he can
control his body whenever required, but only if Grey verbally allows
it. This, of course, leads to
some of UPGRADES most intriguing scenes, showcasing the increasingly
agitated Grey trying to desperately make some sense of his newfound
abilities, and all while carrying on conversations with a
robot voice in his head. It
also builds to some of the film's most darkly comic moments of barbaric
violence: Grey himself can't stomach the thought of murdering
anyone that's tied to Asha's death, but if he allows Stem to do it,
though, then the program is A-okay with taking full motor control away
from him and going on the lethally violent offensive. I found all of
this endlessly fascinating, which helps UPGRADE overcome any overt
criticisms of being wholly derivative.
I liked the progression of Grey's symbiotic relationship with Stem,
which starts off as Grey seeing it as a technological savoir that grants
him his physical life back, but as soon as that impassionate robot voice
begins chatting away in his head Grey is forced to deal with the
realization that Stem can do a hell of a lot more than simply allow for
him to walk again. A lot of
the macabre humor in UPGRADE comes at Grey's moral repulsion to violence
in any form, but his inevitable willingness to let Stem take over and do
all the nasty murder-death-killing for him.
Whannell shows nifty innovation with the fight sequences, seeing as
he has to somehow plausibly relay Grey as a man that is limitlessly
flexible and dexterous, but while having no conscious control over his
body. The camera work in
these various bone crushing and blood curdling fight sequences is fluid,
yet has an unnatural jerkiness to it, which sells the illusion that Grey
is being momentarily possessed by his AI chip.
Moments like this are also a testament to how good Marshall-Green
is as a physical actor, having to play scene after scene where he has to
display pitch perfect timing and physical grace while relaying on his face
that he has no idea what the hell is going on. Marhshall-Green
sells his character's robot-infused might impeccably well, but he's also
even better at showing this character at his absolute worst in life where
you feel the burden of his handicap ravaging him to the point of suicidal
tendencies. The thematic
irony in UPGRADE is thought provoking in the sense that Grey begins the film
shunning technology, but ultimately becoming one with it.
There's an emotional component to UPGRADE that allows for our easy
investment in Grey as a revenge fuelled hero.
I also appreciated the fact that the film is also a slow burn
affair that takes its time with
showing Grey's hellish fall from grace, but eventual recovery, and then
down some darker narrative detours that suggest that his union with Stem
may not entirely end well for him. Even
though UPGRADE has the undertones of pure ultraviolent grindhouse fare, it
has deeper ambitions that allow for it to rise a bit above such simplistic
monikers. I only wished that UPGRADE were a little bit longer to more fully investigate its ageless sci-fi themes; there are times when it certainly looks like its going to toss away stale genre troupes and emerge as a piece of well oiled and thoughtfully speculative sci-fi, only then to fall back on the standard order troupes. More often than not, UPGRADE seems too reticent to explore its ideas any deeper and instead wants to get to the next big action set piece. The film also culminates with a few multiple twists that are not altogether as surprising as the writers think they are, but I did appreciate the haunting darkness of the story's ending. UPGRADE may not entirely be an intelligent sci-fi parable about man versus machine, but it's solidly acted and directed, and Whannell, to his credit, creates a bold and memorable world of the future with minimal financial resources (this is a rich looking cheap film). And at least UPGRADE tries to inhabit well worn genre material while trying to make it fresh and new instead of just lazily appropriating it. |
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