☆☆☆½
There are two things you need to know about Upgrade if you are thinking about seeing it: 1) it is an exceedingly bloody movie, with graphic violence that would be shocking if it weren't so silly; and 2) one of the characters is a mad scientist who lives alone in an underground lair, where he performs experiments.
The two points actually relate to each other, because the most important thing to know about Upgrade is that it is in no way meant to be taken seriously -- its more of a comic book than any of the Marvel or DC movies, and because of that it comes with a lighthearted freedom despite its revenge-filled, blood-soaked tale.
Logan Marshall-Green, who looks exactly like Tom Hardy, stars as man with the impossibly made-for-action-hero-status name Gray Trace. He and his stunning, ultra-successful wife live somewhere in a not-too-distant future that is filled with self-driving cars, voice-activated homes, and ubiquitous police drones. Gray Trace does not fit in to this world, and he prefers to work on old cars while his wife brings home lots and lots of money from her job at a tech company.
He's working on a car to deliver to an eccentric beachside inventor, and his wife comes along for the drive. They find the inventor/mad scientist (Harrison Gilbertson, itself an excellent name for a mad scientist), who shows them what he's been working on: an implantable computer chip that could control ... well, everything.
No sooner are they back on the road when the electronic car takes the handsome Trace couple into the bad part of town, where a group of thugs attacks them in a particularly brutal way, killing the wife (Melanie Vallejo) and leaving Gray for dead. He barely recovers, when when he's done, he's quadriplegic.
Cue the mad scientist, who promises Gray complete recovery if he can implant his chip in Gray's spine. Gray accepts (after signing a non-disclosure agreement) and within days -- hours, really, he's moving again with one big side effect: The computer chip, named STEM, talks to him in a voice that sounds rather suspiciously like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Together, STEM and Gray seek out the men who killed the beautiful Mrs. Trace, uncovering a massive conspiracy to take over the world while being pursued by a gruff-but-nice cop (Betty Gabriel).
Part of the fun to be found in Upgrade -- and there is a lot of fun, if you can (ironically) shut off your brain -- is in its intense familiarity. The plot is a mix of Robocop and The Terminator, with maybe a few drops of Escape from New York thrown in for flavor. It's all thoroughly preposterous, ridiculously violent, and undeniable fun.
If it's not quite as good as those earlier films, it certainly is of a piece with them, and Upgrade's director, Leigh Wannell (who wrote a number of the Saw movies) must have seen them dozens of times to get the tone mostly right: Upgrade is, at times, notably grimmer and less jokey than those movies, though it thankfully understands its own ridiculous setup and embraces it.
You might say, Upgrade is the best 1980s action-thriller not made in the 1980s. Back then, "Dollar Tuesdays" made audiences uncritical and open to embrace low-budget action movies like The Terminator. Now we've got Moviepass, which does the same thing for audiences in the 21st century, and if they go see Upgrade they'll find they get their money's worth ... and a whole lot more.
Viewed June 9, 2018 -- AMC Sunset 5
1350
The two points actually relate to each other, because the most important thing to know about Upgrade is that it is in no way meant to be taken seriously -- its more of a comic book than any of the Marvel or DC movies, and because of that it comes with a lighthearted freedom despite its revenge-filled, blood-soaked tale.
Logan Marshall-Green, who looks exactly like Tom Hardy, stars as man with the impossibly made-for-action-hero-status name Gray Trace. He and his stunning, ultra-successful wife live somewhere in a not-too-distant future that is filled with self-driving cars, voice-activated homes, and ubiquitous police drones. Gray Trace does not fit in to this world, and he prefers to work on old cars while his wife brings home lots and lots of money from her job at a tech company.
He's working on a car to deliver to an eccentric beachside inventor, and his wife comes along for the drive. They find the inventor/mad scientist (Harrison Gilbertson, itself an excellent name for a mad scientist), who shows them what he's been working on: an implantable computer chip that could control ... well, everything.
No sooner are they back on the road when the electronic car takes the handsome Trace couple into the bad part of town, where a group of thugs attacks them in a particularly brutal way, killing the wife (Melanie Vallejo) and leaving Gray for dead. He barely recovers, when when he's done, he's quadriplegic.
Cue the mad scientist, who promises Gray complete recovery if he can implant his chip in Gray's spine. Gray accepts (after signing a non-disclosure agreement) and within days -- hours, really, he's moving again with one big side effect: The computer chip, named STEM, talks to him in a voice that sounds rather suspiciously like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Together, STEM and Gray seek out the men who killed the beautiful Mrs. Trace, uncovering a massive conspiracy to take over the world while being pursued by a gruff-but-nice cop (Betty Gabriel).
Part of the fun to be found in Upgrade -- and there is a lot of fun, if you can (ironically) shut off your brain -- is in its intense familiarity. The plot is a mix of Robocop and The Terminator, with maybe a few drops of Escape from New York thrown in for flavor. It's all thoroughly preposterous, ridiculously violent, and undeniable fun.
If it's not quite as good as those earlier films, it certainly is of a piece with them, and Upgrade's director, Leigh Wannell (who wrote a number of the Saw movies) must have seen them dozens of times to get the tone mostly right: Upgrade is, at times, notably grimmer and less jokey than those movies, though it thankfully understands its own ridiculous setup and embraces it.
You might say, Upgrade is the best 1980s action-thriller not made in the 1980s. Back then, "Dollar Tuesdays" made audiences uncritical and open to embrace low-budget action movies like The Terminator. Now we've got Moviepass, which does the same thing for audiences in the 21st century, and if they go see Upgrade they'll find they get their money's worth ... and a whole lot more.
Viewed June 9, 2018 -- AMC Sunset 5
1350
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