‘Upgrade’ implants humor into violent sci-fi thriller
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.
Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green, who resembles Tom Hardy) is a stay-athome gear head in a dystopian near future, whose beautiful wife, Asha (Melanie Vallego), brings home most of the bacon. Her technology-cynical husband rebuilds muscle cars for entrepreneurs such as super-rich chip developer Eron (a dazed Harrison Gilbertson), who happens to have his own pet cloud. After delivering a restored Firebird to Eron, Grey and Asha are attacked by masked men. She is killed, and Grey is left quadriplegic by an injury to his spine.
Enter STEM (voice of Simon Maiden), a roachshaped super-chip made by Eron. When surgically implanted in Grey’s spine, STEM reconnects Grey’s bisected nerves, talks to him without anyone hearing, sees and senses things no one else can and turns his body into an almost super-powered computer/ weapon. When the assassins start showing up gruesomely dead, sadistic team leader Fisk (Benedict Hardie), who has a David Cronenberg-esque gun built into his arm, goes after Grey for a memorable showdown.
The plot will further involve a biker bar decorated with human bones, a police detective (talented Betty Gabriel) on Grey’s trail, severely wounded combat veterans of a forever war turned into robotic killing machines and a world in which half the people prosper,
while the other half are homeless paupers.
“STEM” is good enough almost to make me forgive Whannell for those horrible “Saw” films he cocreated with James Wan. Almost.
(“Upgrade” contains extreme violence, gruesome images and profanity.)