Upgrade is a modern science fiction movie that has been getting a lot of buzz ever since it premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. After seeing Upgrade the first thing that comes to mind is the TV show Black Mirror. Black Mirror is not only the best anthology show on TV right now, but it is also one of the best shows on TV now period. Black Mirror features a lot of examples of future technology and dark themes that come from those technologies. Upgrade includes a lot of elements about trans-humanism and feels like a modern science fiction story similar to episodes to in Black Mirror. Upgrade in comparison comes off as a slightly above average episode of Black Mirror. It isn’t great by any means but the creative elements mixed with it’s modern science fiction sensibilities is inspiring and unique.
Upgrade is set in the not too distant future and features a classic muscle car mechanic named Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) living with his wife Asha Trace (Melanie Vallejo). Grey is very reluctant of modern technology while his wife Asha is more accepting of it working at a tech company that makes trans-humanism parts for ex-soldiers. On their way home from delivering a classic car to a tech entrepreneur named Eron Keen (Harrison Gilbertson) they get in an accident in Asha’s self-driving car. Right after the wreck they are robbed by a bunch of masked men and Grey ends up paralyzed from the neck down. Not too long later Eron Keen comes to Grey and offers him a device called STEM which will allow Grey to walk again. Grey still reluctant of technology, now has to use it to seek revenge.
Logan Marshall-Green is decent in the main role as Grey Trace. He has an interesting everyman look to him. He looks a lot like Tom Hardy which isn’t a bad thing although time will only tell if he has the same acting chops. Hopefully he can get some bigger roles so we can see what he really has. I’d say he has a lot of potential because every time he had to portray subtle humor or emotion in Upgrade he really pulls it off well. His character is very weary of technology and that creates an interesting situation where he has to depend on technology to walk again and seek his revenge.
His everyman look and seeing this not too distant potential future through his untrustworthy of technology eyes makes him relatable for the audience. I think the reason for that relatability is because every year technology seems to become more advanced and as a society we aren’t quite ready for everything that is coming in the near future. Upgrade touches on a lot of advanced forms of technologies such as automation and trans-humanism which we currently have primitive versions of today.
Upgrade is set in a very cool looking world in the not too distant future. I haven’t seen this much thought put into the technology of a world since the movie Her (2013). Although I think Her is a better and a more thoughtful movie than Upgrade, I still have to give credit to the filmmakers of Upgrade for giving us a glimpse of what the future could look like in ten to twenty years.
The violence in the movie is pretty gruesome and I’m okay with that but it does take it a bit far. Ever since the torture porn popularity of Saw (2004) and Hostel (2005) it seems as though a lot of the gruesome violence in smaller action thrillers has been amped up. Sometimes gruesome violence can go just a little too far and it usually works better when you leave some of the violence in movies up to people’s imagination. The violence that someone can imagine while watching a movie is usually way scarier than anything a filmmaker can put on screen.
Mostly everything works in Upgrade but I can’t help but think that it still could have been a lot better. It relies a bit too much on some old science fiction cliches and it would have been nice to see a bit more depth to go along with it’s mostly original science fiction premise. I get that this movie was made on a smaller budget than most other similar science fiction movies but that shouldn’t prevent the filmmakers from being able to add a bit more meat on the bone.
Dave’s Rating- ★★★½(3½) out of ★★★★★(5)
