"Upgrade" Movie Review

By: James Southworth
Rating: 4/5 Stars

Out of all the up and coming horror directors out there, one of the most exciting that comes to mind, for me, is Leigh Whannell. He's worked closely for years with James Wan, who continues to be my favorite horror director of all time. You could see some of Wan's style, especially his unique camera work techniques, bleeding into Whannell's directorial debut "Insidious: Chapter 3". While I don't think that one is as good as Chapter 1 or 2, I still find it to be a very good horror film, and one that deserves more recognition than what it got. I was excited to see what Leigh would do with "Upgrade" after seeing a cool-looking trailer. In a futuristic world, main character Grey, a self-professes technophobe, loses his wife in a brutal murder. He is left paralyzed by his wife's killers, until a technology called Stem is put into him, which gives him some unbelievable abilities. In my opinion, this movie is incredibly innovative and interesting, doing so much with its surprisingly low budget, as well as boasting an excellent lead performance from Logan Marshall-Green.

What I think will draw (and should draw) audiences to this film is its style. That is certainly what is, for me, the best part of the movie. Whannell makes this movie immediately identifiable in the midst of so many other science fiction/horror films. It shocked me when I found out that this movie was only about 3 million dollars in budget. But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Whannell is certainly used to working on movies with even lower budgets. So, Leigh uses his budget here to its fullest extent. There's not a moment in this film where I felt the futuristic world was fake. I liked how interesting it looked. There was a really cool moment where Grey is getting Stem installed in him. As the camera moves over his body, his skeletal structure flashes in and out of existence. It's such a short moment, but it's a prime example that shows how much Leigh cares about his craft. Eron's lair in general is cool looking. This movie has an interesting world of people in it, too. It doesn't seem that there are a whole lot of people who are strictly human anymore. A lot of them actually have weaponry and other types of technology implanted in their bodies, which was such a cool idea that I haven't seen done in a movie before. Then there are some other people who are stuck in virtual reality. The film shows them only briefly, but it's chilling to see them stuck in this world and moving like robots disconnected from the world around them. The world Grey lives in is so clearly defined and technology centered, so it honestly feels realistic that he would be able to have a technology inside him that makes him super-human. For a sci-fi movie, this world feels almost tangible, which I think was precisely Whannell's point. A lot of the style of this movie comes in its action sequences as well. There is some very unique camera movement in the action-filled moments, as it follows Grey's unnatural body movements as he's fighting against another person. I loved the camera movement, as it made me feel a lot more in the moment in these sequences. The lighting in this movie is also just wonderful. This movie is colorful, and that makes the action a lot more enjoyable, and the world feel even more intriguingly cinematic.

This movie's central theme might look cliched on initial glance. It's basically discussing how if we become a too technology integrated world, then we are in danger of losing the things that make us human. This concept has definitely been explored before. But, I think the movie does well enough with it that the theme works. This is mainly due to how strong Grey is as a character. I thought it was an ingenious idea to have the main character be a technophobe. Right from the beginning of the film, it's established that Grey would prefer to work with his hands. He prefers a car that he can drive himself rather than one that drives on its own. He uses physical money rather than the digital currency. He tries to avoid using his house's integrated technology system as much as he can. Whannell shows us repeatedly that Grey is right to be cynical to technology. However, Grey's acceptance of technology only becomes more inevitable once his wife is murdered. He is initially resistant to Stem being inside him, but it becomes irresistible to use Stem's powers, especially if it means he can seek justice for his wife. The viewer understands Grey's desire to use technology, even though it becomes certain that the technology that originally gave Grey power will ironically lead to a downfall of his own making. There's a lot of commentary on technology here that is subtle. I will say that there is one slightly eye rolling moment where Grey is observing the characters that stay constantly in virtual reality. He asks the character he's with why they stay in VR all the time. She replies, "Because a fake world is better than the real one". That was the one moment when I felt that this movie was spoon-feeding us its message. That line does actually make more sense just why it's there in the end of the movie, but in the moment the line felt cheesy. I'll just say to wait until the end of the movie, because you'll see why that line is there, and it actually ends up being clever. So, even for the one moment in this movie that looks cheesy initially, it still ends up interestingly contributing to the running plot arc. That means the theme works almost completely for the movie's whole run time.

As far as acting goes, the most obvious main draw is Logan Marshall-Green as Grey. Green is absolutely perfect in this role. He made his character's transformation from technophobe to technologically integrated completely believable. Green brought so much complexity to his character, showing his undying love for his wife, his frustration at being paralyzed, and his fear at Stem taking control of him. Even in the moments where we are questioning Green's decisions, I still found him sympathetic. He is admittedly an anti-hero, but thankfully not a cliched one. Whannell knew clearly how he wanted to develop this character, and almost completely laser focuses on him. I also liked Simon Maiden as Stem. He brings plenty of menace to this unseen artificial intelligence, showing simply through his voice how cold and calculated this piece of technology is. I got cold chills from it every time I heard its voice. Maiden's voice acting reveals everything you need to know about Stem's personality, and I really liked that. He brings Stem beyond being just your typical type of evil A.I. Unfortunately, the focus on these two characters takes away anything compelling from the rest of the performances. None of them are really offensive; they just come across as entirely uninteresting. I could tell that Harrison Gilbertson as Eron was trying to do some interesting things with his character, but not enough material is given to him to fully flesh out this character. I saw so much potential in Eron, and wish Leigh had given him more to do, as his arc could've been compelling to watch. The same goes Betty Gabriel as the cop Cortez. Gabriel's performance is pretty good, but her character just is not. She's about as typical of a cop character in this scenario as you could get. She has all the traits you'd expect: she's a good person, a little bit tough, and questions the validity of the main character. Those are very thin character traits, meaning that Cortez could not be in this movie and nothing would change. Benedict Hardie as Fisk is only evil and nothing else. Melanie Vallejo as Grey's wife Asha and Linda Cropper as Grey's mother are also pretty empty characters, and their performances are weak. This is especially problematic for the character of Asha, given that she's the driving force for Grey's whole motivation. I think the film could've spent a bit more time developing their relationship.

"Upgrade" is an incredibly fun ride. The action sequences are brutal, but are not so violent as to be unenjoyable. The action's interesting stylization helps you be able to swallow the more bloody moments of the film. It also helps that Grey is such an interesting character. Even if most of the other characters in this movie are weak, Grey is still so interesting that it's easy to forgive the rest of the characters' flaws, as almost none of them really matter a whole lot in the long run. This movie is about one man's descent into a dangerous technology world, and how he becomes unavoidably a part of it, even when he tries to resist it. I like this directorial film from Whannell better than "Insidious 3". I can't wait to see where he goes from here. I definitely recommend you see this movie in theaters; it is one of my favorites of 2018 so far!