Upgrade (2018) | Film Review

The best thing about the annual selection of films available at the SXSW Film Festival lies in the unexpected gems you stumble upon. Every year, without fail, some miniscule budgeted film with an odd hook leaps out of the darkness and instills a new sense of fandom in my core. This year, writer-director Leigh Whannell (Saw, Insidious) was debuting his latest film, Upgrade. Knowing little more than it was a post-modern stab at technology gone rogue, I took a chance and stumbled upon a diamond in the rough.

Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) is an old-fashioned guy trapped in a futuristic world. Preferring to work with his hands on muscle cars, Grey is surrounded by evolving technology and digital wizardry. His wife, Asha (Melanie Vallejo), prefers the modern age. Surrendering to a fully Alexa-ified experience, where everything in life is automated, Asha loves the conveniences evolution has wrought.

After a night spent dropping off a car for his client Eron (Harrison Gilbertson), a reclusive Steve Jobs of the future, Grey and Asha are attacked and left for dead. The brutality leaves Grey both a widower and paralyzed from the waist down. A man that lives and dies by the use of his body, as well as desperate to hunt down the men responsible, Grey’s natural machismo succumbs to depression and despair. Renewed hope lies with Eron, as his brilliance has enacted a new chip – nicknamed STEM – that he believes can reconnect the damaged and severed nerves and make Grey whole again. With artificial intelligence implanted that can both interact and monologue with its host, STEM makes revenge its prime directive.

Leigh Whannell does bonkers better than almost any writer in Hollywood, and Upgrade is no exception. In lesser hands, the concept of an AI holding an internal monologue with its host would seem cheesy and trite, but Whannell isn’t aiming for high-tech accuracy. Instead, he wants to elicit the same thrills evoked watching classic films like Terminator and Escape from New York. And by immersing the film in sleek technology, complimented by Jed Palmer’s 80s-era John Carpenter-esque score, he manages to toss us into the future by grounding our feet firmly in the past. It’s a sly trick, further complicated by the film’s restrained budget, and Whannell pulls it off like a pro.

Marshall-Green does an admirable job of elaborating on the time-worn cliché of a revenge seeking hubby, but when Grey finds himself in predicaments that require him to allow STEM to take over, that’s when Upgrade kicks ass into the ethereal plane. At these moments, STEM functions as a cyber-puppet master, cranking Grey into a lethal killing machine ala Jason Bourne, or a CSI detective akin to Batman. And watching Marshall-Green play with these newfound attributes is a joy to behold, demanding we pump our fists up high in the air on repeated occasions as Grey fluidly brutalizes his enemies, while still maintaining a complete look of bewilderment and confusion for the entirety.

This is not going to rock anyone’s socks as the next hard-hitting sci-fi think piece, but if you are looking for thrills with an emphasis on fun, Upgrade is a full-tilt winner. From beginning until the cleverly layered finale, this was one of the most engaging films presented at SXSW this year, and concocted by an artist who obviously shares my love for much of the genre brilliance that rolled out of the 80s. By the time the final credits hit the screen on Upgrade, all I was left with was the hope that Grey will be back.