Upgrade is the newest film by Leigh Whannell, co-writer of a good chunk of the Saw and Insidious movies. As his writing partner James Wan has gone on to have a very prolific and successful directing career, Whannell’s began back in 2015 with the less-than-stellar third entry to the Insidious franchise. While he has yet to really prove himself as a director, I was still looking forward to seeing him working on an original project to get a better sense of his artistic style.
Set in a near future, the film follows somewhat techno-resistant antique car mechanic/restorer Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green), after his wife is killed and he is left quadriplegic as the result of a violent attack. While recovering from the incident he enlists in an experimental procedure to have an artificial intelligence implanted into his nervous system, returning to him the functions of his limbs. This artificial intelligence, dubbed STEM (voiced by Simon Maiden), offers the benefit of enhanced strength and reflexes should bodily control be completely relinquished to it. Despite being sworn to secrecy by the doctor that performed the back-alley surgery, Grey uses his newfound abilities to hunt down those responsible for destroying his life.
Where Upgrade really shines is in its brutally violent action scenes, which is where you can definitely see Whannell’s involvement with the Saw franchise poking through. When Grey hands over control of his body to STEM he becomes a ruthless robotic killing machine despite not being 100% complicit in the carnage taking place. The slick action choreography and camerawork gives off vibes of something like Gareth Evans’ The Raid films, with stabilized shots of Grey ducking, dodging, and pulverizing his opposition. Marshall-Green does an excellent job of selling Grey in these fight scenes as being completely bewildered by everything going on around him to the point where it’s darkly comedic at points. It’s this juxtaposition of violence with morbid comedy that had me fully on-board for these action scenes.
Unfortunately, Whannell doesn’t commit fully to this brutal yet playful tone and comes off a bit melodramatic at times when he should be embracing the ridiculousness. At times the film feels stuck somewhere between wanting to be a serious commentary on violence a la the original Charlie Bronson Death Wish while also trying to be over-the-top satire somewhere along the lines of Verhoeven’s Robocop. There is an attempt to build out an interesting cyberpunk world where a good portion of society has succumbed to technology, be it through self-driving cars or communities of people living life inside of virtual reality simulations. This is mirrored pretty well in Grey’s initial resistance to technological advancement eroding under the pressure of STEM to succumb to digital automation.
In the end, I was left wanting more. In a way this is a testament to how effectively I was sold on the core elements of the film, but on the other hand makes me feel like I was delivered a less than complete final product. If anything, Upgrade has reinvigorated hope in Whannell as a director for me. While I feel that there is room for refinement and improvement, he clearly has vision and a knack for shooting action, even if he is limited by a staggeringly small budget. I definitely will be back for whatever he has lined up next, especially if it’s more of this world he has begun to establish.
7/10
Pros: great action, bursts of brutal violence, darkly comedic at times, beginnings of some great world-building
Cons: uneven and inconsistent tone, hindered by low budget, sub-par melodramatic acting