'Upgrade' Overachieves

Set in the near future, Upgrade tells the story of Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green), a man left widowed and quadriplegic by a seemingly random mugging (but if you have seen enough movies, it should be obvious that there’s nothing random about it).  One day, eccentric tech guru billionaire Eron Keen (Harrison Gilbertson) offers him the chance of getting his motor functions back by being the test subject of a revolutionary cybernetic implant called STEM.  Grey accepts, and soon after the surgery, STEM (voiced by Simon Maiden) speaks to him in his mind, revealing that not only can it make him walk and move his body again, but it can also heighten his body’s senses, precision, strength, agility, and efficiency.  And so, with the help of STEM, Grey proceeds to hunt down those responsible for murdering his wife.

First of all, I’m seriously impressed by this movie.  For a low-budget production, it looks extremely well-crafted.  The visuals look good, and there’s a real sense of solidness to all production elements.  With many of its recent movies, Blumhouse (the studio) has been successfully accomplishing much despite having little (e.g. Get Out, The Gift, Happy Death Day), and Upgrade is simply another example of such.

The thing that initially drew me to this movie is the intriguing concept of a man, who is otherwise unskilled in martial arts, suddenly becoming a deadly fighting machine by temporarily giving up control of his body to an AI (somewhat like Hunter X Hunter’s Shalnark), which was deliciously shown in the trailer.  I thought that that would definitely make a fantastic action B movie.  Hence, I would have been fine if Upgrade turned out being just that.  And for a good amount into the movie, it felt like that was indeed going to be the case.

However, it actually decides to become something more than visceral fight scenes.  Near the end, there’s this huge plot twist that totally changes the movie.  It understandably won’t sit well with others since it’s truly a radical shift from what it was.  But, to me, it totally works.  In retrospect, it should have come rather obvious, but it didn’t to me, because I never thought this movie would go to that bold direction.  Hence, though I wasn’t really blown away, I was genuinely surprised.  For the movie started off looking like it just wanted to be a revenge action thriller, but then it suddenly took a turn into becoming something taken out of Black Mirror.

Lastly, Logan Marshall-Green is pretty good in this movie.  Not only did he perform the fight choreography well, but he did so by giving justice to the unique requirement of his facial expressions being disjointed from the movements of the rest of his body (remember: as far as the script is concerned, Grey is not the one in control of his body during a fight but STEM).  Moreover, I noticed for the first time that this actor looks like Tom Hardy in both demeanor and appearance. 

All in all, Upgrade is not necessarily awesome, but it’s definitely a worthwhile watch and deserves to be applauded for overachieving.