When researching Upgrade, I saw Leigh Whannell as the film’s director and writer. I started thinking “Where have I heard that name before?” So naturally, I went to the dark web…..er, IMDB. Whannell, turns out, is James Wan’s preferred writer. Wan, for the uninitiated, is an amazing director in the horror genre, personally spawning several franchises, including Saw (with Whannell), Insidious (Also with Whannell) and the Conjurings, the best horror franchise in years. Turns out Whannell was doing more than just acting and writing in Wan’s films; Upgrade displays a depth of talent for the relative novice Whannell that gives me hope that we’ve got a hot new talent on the market, ready to deliver some truly awesome films in the years to come.
Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) is your standard grease monkey; fixing up old cars and selling them to high bidders. He’s married to Asha (Melanie Vallejo), who is the opposite of him: she works in a biotechnology firm in a future where robotic technology increasingly fuses with human anatomy and human/robot cyborgs(?) are becoming the norm. On the way home from selling a muscle car to Eron (Harrison Gilbertson), the creator of much of this technology, Grey and Asha’s car crashes, where they are assaulted by a group of people, which leaves Asha dead and Grey paralyzed from the waist down. Before Grey ends his life, Eron proposes a solution: he wants to install a chip into Grey’s spine that may make him walk again. The surgery is a success: Grey almost instantly starts walking again. There’s just one catch: the guy has a voice named STEM (voice of Simon Maiden) in his head, the voice of the chip’s artificial intelligence program. Despite two voices warring in Grey’s head, his mission is clear: he wants to track down the people responsible for Asha’s death, which Grey must do covertly, as detective Cortez (Betty Gabriel) is also investigating the criminals and believes Grey to be paralyzed.
Whannell’s script is rewarding on so many levels. Let’s start with the plot: Grey’s investigation into his wife’s murder. Clearly, there are going to be some conflicts with the 4 assailants, but in Upgrade’s case, there’s a twist: STEM controls all of Grey’s limbs. So when fights break out, Grey is essentially a bystander to what his body does. The camera moves like Grey himself feels: as a voyeur to the insane fights going on. There are many closeups of Logan Marshall-Green’s face as he is incredulous at how great and dynamic STEM is at neutralizing his opponents. There’s also time for some great humor, like Grey pleading for an attacker to stop advancing because STEM will end him pretty quickly or STEM helping Grey get past an interrogation from detective Cortez, or moments of horror when Grey sees the lengths STEM goes to to eliminate hostile behavior. The dynamic between the two of them drives the story, with Grey’s humanity playing nicely off of STEM’s cold determination. The resolution of the story is for the most part pretty obvious if you are paying attention, but by that time, you’re so invested in the dynamic between Grey and STEM, you’re still curious how the investigation will come to an end.
As fun as the Grey/STEM relationship is, I found Whannell’s world building on a budget the secret star of the film. We open on Grey working on an old school car, like we’ve seen in countless films before, but then when Asha comes home, she’s driving this futuristic self driving vehicle as they enter this futuristic robot powered house, just completely disorienting the viewer. Whannell’s best idea is the concept of human/robot fusions. In most dystopic futures, human’s have created a being that’s either a machine designed to be human (Ex Machina) or a human-like robot (Avengers: Age of Ultron). In Whannell’s future, robots don’t have full control yet, creating this interesting transitory spot in time where evolution is happening covertly, creating varying levels of upgraded human/robot fusions. In my opinion, the most interesting scene is between Grey and Serk (Richard Cawthorne), another human who has joined in a symbiotic relationship with the parts of himself that are machine. That conversation actually made me excited for possible continued visits to this world Upgrade created, which I almost never say about a movie.
Upgrade is financed by Blumhouse Productions, which for me, has joined Disney Animation, A24, and Annapurna Productions as the best producers of interesting stories and screenplays out there right now, including what may end up being the film of the decade last year. Upgrade is another proud entry into their growing resume, introducing the world to a talented new director on the market (Leigh Whannell) and a too-under-the-radar acting talent (The Invitation‘s Logan Marshall-Green) and a really fascinating world that like STEM, implants in your brain and stays there.