Upgrade (2018)
Directed by Leigh Whannell
A brutal mugging leaves Grey Trace paralyzed in the hospital and his beloved wife dead. A billionaire inventor soon offers Trace a cure — an artificial intelligence implant called STEM that will enhance his body. Now able to walk, Grey finds that he also has superhuman strength and agility — skills he uses to seek revenge against the thugs who destroyed his life.
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What critics say influenced Upgrade
Clearly influenced by films like The Terminator, Videodrome, The Matrix, RoboCop, and there may even be a little bit of Johnny Mnemonic in there as well (hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?), Whannell transports us into the future where technology has taken over nearly ever facet of our lives, but Grey Trace (Marshall-Green) still clings to his analog-loving existence by working on classic cars and expressing his desire to make pizza from scratch.
The writer-director, Leigh Whannell , a key member of the “Saw” and “Insidious” franchise teams (though this is only the second feature he’s directed, after “Insidious 3”), would probably be perfectly happy if you watched his movie and name-checked all the influences he’s vacuumed into it, from “The Hidden” to “Ex Machina” to “The Terminator.”
The distinction between Grey and Grey while under control is methodically crafted, giving the body robotic movements and precise command over joints similar to much of the fight choreography in The Matrix franchise (this comes as less of a surprise once you remember that Leigh Whannell actually had a minor role in the series and is no doubt also drawing inspiration from working on that set alongside his own self-professed influences such as The Terminator), all stylishly flavored with swirling camera movements and an edgy hard rock soundtrack that fits with the gnarly brutality from every death on the checklist of generic villains.
He proves to be a good student of the genre—hardly a scene goes by that doesn’t play as a shout-out to some film or another, ranging from the obvious like “Robocop” and “The Terminator” to titles whose very mention would probably be considered spoilers—but when it comes to understanding why those movies worked, he is on less sure footing.
Upgrade is a film that, like James Cameron’s The Terminator before it, shows that humankind is perhaps a bit too dependent on technology.
That such '80s-era films as The Terminator and Robocop were an inspiration becomes instantly apparent in the latest directorial effort from Leigh Whannell (veteran of the Saw and Insidious franchises).
Natch, there’s a fly in the ointment – corporate espionage, bottom lines and more that drive the bigger picture, and themes right out of “Frankenstein” or “Blade Runner” (1982) – but it’s all a device for Grey to tap into his inner HAL and hack up henchmen, some of whom have guns implanted in their arms; one who can sneeze deadly spores.
First up, it's a near-future, cyberpunk-tinged tale, which (bar Blade Runner and The Matrix) has a spotty track record at the box office.
Sure, it’s got your dime-a-dozen Blade Runner cyberpunk debris (holograms, drones flying over city streets), but production designer Felicity Abbott infuses these objects with an organic sensibility that furthers the film’s thematic intermixing of the natural and artificial.
Upgrade zips along like a version of the original Blade Runner on speed (it even has a futuristic detective segment utilizing security camera footage) as the structure is as simple as tracking down each man responsible for the attacks one by one, but honestly, that’s all the movie needs.
Directed by Leigh Whannell (co-creator of Saw, Insidious, and lots more) with a whole lot of zing, it’s sort of like a tragic film noir combined with dashes of Blade Runner, RoboCop, and Death Wish.
In the end, the clear borrowing from the great, snarky original 1987 “RoboCop” (near-future cityscape and all) almost overpowers “Upgrade.”
The ghosts of “eXistenZ” (1999) and “The Terminator” (1984) may linger at its edges, but Paul Verhoeven’s “RoboCop” (1987) is the most obvious influence haunting “Upgrade,” whether one’s comparing their social commentaries or a parallel fascination with matters of the steel and flesh.
It’s not a scattershot approach, per se; what it is, is deliberately weird, pulling signifiers from a range of nominally similar films (Robocop, say, or Videodrome, or even the notably more sunny Robot & Frank) but deploying them in ways that keep the viewer off kilter.
And he sounds just like Douglas Rain's deadpan delivery as HAL 9000 from "2001: A Space Odyssey."
Welcome to Leigh Whannell’s Upgrade, a cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Robocop , and also uniquely its own thing.
It’s a computer that reconnects his mind to his body, and also fuses with his body, so that Grey can become an invincible fighting machine, his limbs controlled by programming (at least, when he wants them to be) and the voice of STEM talking directly to him, inside his skull, in tones of gentle resolve that are clearly designed to remind you of HAL from “2001: A Space Odyssey” (though he sounds like a HAL who just graduated from a Tony Robbins seminar).
Allowed to wallow in a grime that owes as much to Death Wish and RoboCop as it does 2001: A Space Odyssey, Whannell and Jason Blum’s low budget but high ambition mostly serves up gleeful and sadistic thrills.
But the set pieces are excellent, especially once Trace and STEM interface; imagine HAL 9000 and Dr. Bowman from “2001: A Space Odyssey” in a buddy cop movie.
The chip, called “STEM,” also speaks to Grey, in a voice similar to that of HAL in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
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Merge the hyper-stylized combat sequences from "The Matrix" with headier elements from sci-fi's "Colossus: The Forbin Project," add a crimson splash of David Cronenberg's "Videodrome" and you'd roughly get "Upgrade."
And it's a surprisingly effective mashup of several genres -- superhero (à la Unbreakable ), sci-fi (in the neighborhood of The Matrix and Ex Machina ), revenge (think Death Wish or The Crow ), comedy ( All of Me ), and horror (more for the gore than anything else).
Clearly influenced by films like The Terminator, Videodrome, The Matrix, RoboCop, and there may even be a little bit of Johnny Mnemonic in there as well (hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?), Whannell transports us into the future where technology has taken over nearly ever facet of our lives, but Grey Trace (Marshall-Green) still clings to his analog-loving existence by working on classic cars and expressing his desire to make pizza from scratch.
First up, it's a near-future, cyberpunk-tinged tale, which (bar Blade Runner and The Matrix) has a spotty track record at the box office.
The distinction between Grey and Grey while under control is methodically crafted, giving the body robotic movements and precise command over joints similar to much of the fight choreography in The Matrix franchise (this comes as less of a surprise once you remember that Leigh Whannell actually had a minor role in the series and is no doubt also drawing inspiration from working on that set alongside his own self-professed influences such as The Terminator), all stylishly flavored with swirling camera movements and an edgy hard rock soundtrack that fits with the gnarly brutality from every death on the checklist of generic villains.
I’m talking *hard* sci-fi, with callbacks to anything from eXistenZ to The Matrix to Minority Report.
Merge the hyper-stylized combat sequences from "The Matrix" with headier elements from sci-fi's "Colossus: The Forbin Project," add a crimson splash of David Cronenberg's "Videodrome" and you'd roughly get "Upgrade."
It’s not a scattershot approach, per se; what it is, is deliberately weird, pulling signifiers from a range of nominally similar films (Robocop, say, or Videodrome, or even the notably more sunny Robot & Frank) but deploying them in ways that keep the viewer off kilter.
Clearly influenced by films like The Terminator, Videodrome, The Matrix, RoboCop, and there may even be a little bit of Johnny Mnemonic in there as well (hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?), Whannell transports us into the future where technology has taken over nearly ever facet of our lives, but Grey Trace (Marshall-Green) still clings to his analog-loving existence by working on classic cars and expressing his desire to make pizza from scratch.
I’m talking *hard* sci-fi, with callbacks to anything from eXistenZ to The Matrix to Minority Report.
And there’s a boilerplate feel to the law enforcement elements – the great Betty Gabriel from ”Get Out” is stranded in her thinly-drawn cop role – and its vision of the future, which combine to give the picture a real “Minority Report” vibe (not the movie, the Fox TV knock-off).
Whannell’s too smart of a genre fan to allow for that, and as he blends inspirations as diverse as Street Hawk, Angel Heart, and Her the end result is a movie that — like its own characters — builds something new and exciting from pre-existing parts.
It’s not nearly as sharp or socially biting, but does have a fresh, whimsical take on tomorrow – “Her” (2013) on crack and very angry.
It’s the kind of SmartHouse, techno-takeover world that Apple users dream of, blackened and revenge-ified by Whannell’s oddly apt Her meets Weekend At Bernie’s scramble – with way more splattered blood and guts.
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Although Whannell quotes shamelessly from the opening of The Six Million Dollar Man, he’s probably thinking more Robocop in envisioning Grey’s transformation.
A Philip K. Dick-centric sci-fi sleeper from Blumhouse, Aussie writer-director Leigh Whannell’s “Upgrade” takes elements from “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “Robocop” and “The Terminator” and recycles them into a low-budget semi-comic genre entry that is surprising fun, even with the nasty bloodshed.
The film is an exploration of the idea that we can replace body parts with advanced technology to not only keep someone alive, but to actually make them better – kind of like if The Six Million Dollar Man and Robocop had a love child that they named Ex Machina.
Combining elements of “Death Wish” with “The Six Million Dollar Man,” it focuses on Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green), who witnesses the brutal murder of his wife and is left a quadriplegic.
Like Steve Martin in All of Me , he manages to act while performing physical feats that surprise even him, including struggling against his own body.
There’s something inherently comic about a face that’s entirely removed from what a body is doing, and Whannell wisely leans into the humor; it plays, in spots, like “All of Me” as directed by Gareth Evans.