THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Technophobia should be taken as serious as other fears because the advancements of technology are so uncanny to the point it can control our lives before we even know it. Many sci fi films have shown such fears, but none have been as grounded in the same vein as Upgrade.
PLOT
The 2018 film takes place in a cyberpunk dystopian 2046 and follows auto mechanic Grey Trace. He lives with his wife Asha who works for Cobalt, a company that contributes to human-computer augmentations. One day, he invites to meet his one of his clients, Eron Keen, renowned tech innovator, who in turn shows them both his latest creation he calls 'STEM', capable of managing human motor functions. When returning home, the couple get attacked by muggers who hack their self driving car and cause it to crash. When they dragged out of the car, Asha gets shot in the chest and Grey gets his spinal cord severed after getting shot in the neck. After spending three months in the hospital now becoming wheelchair bound, he gets taken under the care of his mother Pamela (Linda Cropper). And after checking out, he meets Detective Cortez who is assigned to the mugging case but confesses they haven't been able to identify the attackers yet despite the use of an advanced drone that was there at the scene. With his depression becoming severe to the point attempting suicide via overdosing from prescribed medication, Eron visits him and convinces him to use STEM. The surgery ends up being a success as it helps him walk again, but must remain paralyzed to the public eye due to signing a non disclosure agreement after said procedure. STEM would then prove to be sentient when speaking to Grey, quickly choosing to help him solve his wife's murder after being able to identify one of the three assailants, Serk Banther (Richard Cawthorne). Together, they track him down at his home and confront him but STEM is able to lethally kill him once Grey gives him permission to control his body. Cortez suspects him to be involved, but negates the possibility due to still believing he's paralyzed and the fact he covered up the evidence of his presence. With Eron tracking Grey, he demands him to stop his investigation due to how getting caught could lead to STEM being taken from him. Based on their lead off of texts read at Serk's house, he still moves forward with his own investigation and tracks the second man involved in Asha's murder, Tolan (Christopher Kirby). He tracks him down at a bar called the Old Bones and allows STEM to torture him in order to get the name of the ringleader, Fisk who has his own advanced augmentations like his brother Serk did. With Eron planning to shut down STEM completely for ignoring his warning, he then reaches a hacker nicknamed Jamie (Kai Bradley). It pays off when the chip's input guard gets removed in time to fight off Fisk's crew who were nearby to investigate Tolan's death. When returning home, Pamela finds him walking again, forcing Grey to tell him his predicament and how she wasn't supposed to know. Cortez then visits his home to confront him of his wheelchair being abandoned near the Old Bones. As he admits he was in the area, she uses this time to plant a listening device on his jacket. Grey considers giving up knowing that he's gone too far, but STEM convinces him to keep going since Fisk will likely track him down. So he drives to him and gets Cortez off his tail by hacking an automated car nearby and causing it to crash. Grey confronts Fisk of the attack and the latter admits he was only hired to paralyze him so STEM could be implanted and Asha wasn't supposed to be there. Once he beats him in a fight to the death, Grey hears messages from Eron that suggest he orchestrated all that's happened. He then quickly storms his home and kills all personnel in his way to confront him next. Cortez catches up as well but at that point, Eron confesses STEM has been forcing him to do his bidding all along because he desires to be human. The implant confesses of his intent when killing Eron. The film ends with STEM assuming control over Grey's body and put his consciousness in an idyllic dream state as he kills Cortez and get what he wants.
THOUGHTS
Leigh Whannell had proven to be a mastermind in horror when co-creating Saw and Insidious with James Wan, which had me easily onboard on what he would write and direct on his own. In only his second time helming the director's chair, he makes his most extravagant yet. The visual effects and set pieces made for this dystopia easily pull me in from the start on what would be different from what was seen before. It can be easy to identify this film as horror due to the graphic violence shown from the otherworldly choreographed fight scenes, but it's more to the fact on how shocking the ending is. Simon Maiden gives a compelling voiceover as STEM for representing the deceptiveness one can suspect of advanced technology controlling humanity little by little. At this point, we don't know if our creations have the upper hand, but it is best to keep our guard no matter the scenario. STEM taking over Grey's body can foreshadow the doom of us all, but it can also define the important trait on how we should be careful who we trust no matter how vulnerable we may be because you won't know one's true intentions until it's too late. Through a fantastic performance by Logan Marshall Green, Grey was a guy at his lowest when losing his physical will to move as well as losing the love of his life. Melanie Vallejo showed Asha to be such a sweetheart who despite being his polar opposite as in having their differences over advanced technology, she always respected his honesty when sharing how he felt with the world around him thus making her death all the more heartbreaking. She obviously meant the world to him, which made him so desperate in his choice to allow STEM to control his body and achieve justice. You can't even blame him for wanting to give up midway because he's not comfortable in hurting people to pursue the truth, but caved in going on out of fear since STEM shut off on its own once the input guard was down. You also feel bad for his mom because she gets left under the loop and could've stopped him from doing something so irrational. As much as you feel so conflicted on being happy he found peace in the dream state he gets put in, fantasizing that Asha is still alive, you know the world is screwed with STEM in control of him. Eron is not exactly a bad guy because even though he was an anti-social kind of guy, Harrison Gilbertson makes clear he was all about wanting the best of humanity's next step of evolution which was the whole point of making STEM. He couldn't shut down the chip sooner but he was too afraid to do it knowing how much he was watching over him, thus being shook he bit the dust as well. The only human that was truly scary to me here was Fisk because Benedict Hardie showed he was a relentless man who embraced the advantages he had with his augmentations. I mean it's hard to not be terrified of sneezing nano-bots when you think about it. The only other human I was rooting for Cortez because Betty Gabriel accurately portrayed her as conscientious kind of cop who sympathizes for Grey's loss (as well as relating to the dislike of the advanced technology), but knows vigilantism won't truly be beneficial down the line no matter how efficient it may appear. Had she caught on to Grey sooner, she totally could've helped him deduce STEM's intentions before it was too late. Sadly, she went down with the rest of good souls for doing the right thing. This movie was downright amazing, but even good stuff like this have issues I picked up on during a re-watch. For instance, it was an effort for the police drone to report to the scene when Grey and Asha get attacked, but why isn't there another one following the gang? Even if Stem were to hack it, a second drone would've been more believable for Grey to accept the disadvantage. It's even sad when he gets reminded by his house program that Asha died, but why doesn't it get updated by his mom? Within the three month gap, she could've done that before bringing her son home. It's also quite a surprise Grey didn't sign an NDA before the surgery. If Stem wants to make sure he goes through with it, he could've had Eron tell him to sign in advance. A big design flaw isn't from Stem, but from another device instead. It's one thing to have a voice operated coffee table, but that thing should have a system where only the owner can operate it. It feels important to point out since it doesn't seem that Stem hacked it before telling Grey how to use it. Hell, Grey could've hid in a closet to have a better advantage rather than the living room. I want to like the idea of implanting a gun on your arm, but it does sound illogical since the factor of metal detectors can be a big problem. And if you can absorb someone else's memories after they die, I don't see the problem to do it from the palm instead of the eye. So I'm surprised no one had that issue at all before or during the timeline of this movie. Moving on, I am with many people who would say Grey's suspicion should've been higher on the fact Stem looked into the use of a hacker in advance of going tot the bar. He may have been given him a lot of leeway by then, but he should've surrendered to Eron at that point no matter how close he was to the truth. And if he wasn't shot with a gun, how come the cops didn't realize there weren't any bullet or powder burns on him when his body was found? That totally could've narrowed things down if they put those pieces together. Also, why doesn't Cortez call for backup in the climax? Even if Stem is about to control Grey completely, imagine how much of a disadvantage he'd be if facing more than three people which was the most we saw at the bar fight. Had she done that, another cop would've remembered the case file on Grey which would've proved to the world what was going on before it was too late. Ignore this, then you’ll still be amazed as much as I was the first time around. In short, Upgrade is a fantastic sci fi film for being smarter than anticipated and then some. If those are the films you’re looking for, see this now.
Comments