2018’s Upgrade,
written and directed by Leigh Whannell.
Starring Logan Marshall-Green, Abby Craden, Benedict Hardie,
Harrison Gilbertson, Melanie Vallejo, Betty Gabriel, Steve Danielsen, and Simon
Maiden.
What is it about?
Upgrade stars
Logan Marshall-Green as Grey Trace, a mechanic who one night is with his wife
(Abby Craden), when they are attacked. His wife does not survive, and Grey is
rendered a quadriplegic. Widowed and paralyzed, he is approached by a tech
company owner (Benedict Hardie) who offers to implant an artificial
intelligence chip into his spinal column that will not only help him regain his
mobility, but will turn him into an elite killing machine. The mobility comes
with the voice of A.I. guide, STEM (Simon Maiden), whom is also handy for on
the fly instructions. Newly emboldened, will Grey be able to get revenge upon
his attackers?
Why is it worth seeing?
Upgrade is a
futuristic (but plausible) B film featuring plenty of action, and a kooky conversation
about the perils of technology’s intersection with human beings’ evolution. Its
story has been told before (and better, such as in Ghost in the Machine), but it’s high wire fight scenes, gratuitous
gore, and interesting message make for something lightly fun.
Writer-director Leigh Whannell’s experience as the writer
(for some), actor (mostly first one) and producer (for all) of the Saw franchise shows here, as Upgrade can be pretty grisly in terms of
the violence depicted and even its bizarre medical scenes- but its moments of
action are without a doubt thrilling. Whannell does many interesting camera
tricks to dress up the choreography of the hand to hand combat packed in here,
and it helps to disorient us as much as our protagonist coming to grips with
his newfound abilities. It can even be pretty comical watching Marshall-Green’s
character struggle to stay in step with his now killer elite semi-independent
body’s actions.
Whannel’s script brings to mind a conversation that’s been
had many times before, in terms of mankind’s uneasy relationship with
technology. Not just the perils of artificial intelligence, but even more so
our evolution from human beings to… something else. It’s tough to not agree
with Upgrade’s viewpoint about humans
welcoming technology to make them physically and intellectually superior to
what they were before. In a society where everybody owes and everybody pays,
there is no free lunch- and there are side effects to shoving metals in our
bodies that have the capacity to compute information faster than the most
brilliant of human minds.
While Whannell seems to prefer more kinetic thrills and
goofy side attractions to the straight up philosophical aspects of its subject
matter, Upgrade’s ending leaves a lot
of room for contextual discussion regarding what human beings are transforming
into as we invent machines that are deadlier, faster, and smarter than their
creators. With so much potential (and distraction), its hard to imagine us not
welcoming our next stage of evolution with open metallic arms.
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