Upgrade

Cast: Logan Marshall-Green, Betty Gabriel, and Harrison Gilbertson

Director: Leigh Whannell

100 minutes (15) 2018

Second Sight

Blu-ray region B

[Released 18th November]

Rating: 8/10

Review by Christopher Geary

Combining elements of cyberpunk and body-horror, Upgrade cleverly updates the basic sci-fi of popular 'bionic hero' TV show The Six Million Dollar Man (1973-8), while also acknowledging its thematic borrowings of genre concerns from Frankensteinian bio-tech. In a capitalist future, a private vehicle tells passengers: “Please do not touch the steering wheel while the car is in motion.” It’s a simple and throwaway joke that slightly undermines the SF affect of this admirably intense cyber-thriller, but the movie’s level of humour very soon improves.

The retro-lifestyle of protagonist, Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green, Prometheus, TV series Damnation), establishes a context that deals with his apparent Luddite philosophy as a cultural view, not just backwards thinking. Grey survives a hijacking and crash but his wife is killed. He is left paralysed, stuck in a bed or wheelchairs, a mild technophobe served by robots, and suffering from suicidal depression. An implant of new technology, Stem, repairs his nerves, revives his dying spirit, and prompts Grey’s quest for answers to his wife’s death, and ultimately a soul-crushing revenge upon his renegade attackers.

Playing detective, Grey gets himself into serious trouble with RoboCop-mode actions. His new abilities turn him into an effective super-soldier. Secrets and lies accumulate quickly as Grey takes to feigning invalidity to keep all police suspicion away from him, while his robotic ninja skill-set inflicts grisly horrors on low-life criminals. Can our vigilante retain his mobility and win independence before his fearful creator hacks a system shut-down? A whole catalogue of lethal weaponry, not unlike stuff deployed by comic book characters in some of Warren Ellis’ best work, is found to be hidden in various human bodies - for a display of chillingly ultra-violent effects, recalling Cronenberg’s first and best movies.

Briskly plotted and well acted, Upgrade is a more than competent sci-fi movie, frequently inventive and cleverly composed with striking designs, dark futurism themes, and several combinations of stunts and gory special effects that result in outstanding urban combat sequences. Perhaps inevitably, for a story about machines taking over, the Stem devices become like odd techno-cousins of typical demonic possession, with the moral dilemmas of such a science and supernatural cross-over intact. 

Looking back to Surrogates (2009), building upon the dramatic successes of Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2014), Luke Scott’s Morgan (2016), and TV remake Westworld (2016-8), writer-director Leigh Whannell has fun with Australian locations, while his bleak movie’s character-study tackles the trauma-victim social-problems of a quadriplegic, and explores the potential benefits and gloomy downsides of A.I. interactions with people in civilian and military areas.

The superb Blu-ray limited edition comes with a 40-page booklet and poster artwork.

Bonus features:

• Not Action. Not Sci-Fi. More: a new interview with director Whannell
• Permission Granted: a new interview with producer Kylie Du Fresne
• Future Noir: a new interview with cinematographer Stefan Duscio
• Hacking Upgrade: a new interview with editor Andy Canny
• The Art Of Fighting Without Fighting: a new interview with fight choreographer Chris Weir