Revenge is gory with robot karate
“Upgrade” is a movie by Leigh Whannell, who wrote “Saw,” “Insidious” and other memorable horror movies.
But other than the occasional moment of stunningly gratuitous gore, it’s nothing like those films. It feels like the work of a man who grew up watching “Knight Rider,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” and “The Equalizer” (the TV one), then occasionally slipped a copy of “The Terminator” in a VCR.
That’s mostly a compliment. “Upgrade” has flaws in pacing and execution; and the vision of the future always seems about 45 percent complete. But there’s a renegade spirit to the film, which revels in new ideas and crowd-pleasing moments. And in the scenes when the execution matches the ambition, it’s a memorably outstanding effort.
Logan Marshall-Green is Grey Trace, an antique car mechanic who loves his Trans Am and wife Asha, but hates the tech-filled near future. He gets in an accident that paralyzes him and kills his wife, but is saved by the technology he hates.
After Trace gets his upgrade — think Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix” after he learned kung fu — the widower must pretend he’s still immobile, while tracking down and interrogating his wife’s killers to find out who was behind the job.
It’s all very silly, perhaps intentionally so. Trace’s new STEM operating systems talks to him like KITT from the aforementioned “Knight Rider.” The film is only semi-committed to its sci-fi ideas, and Whannell’s writing has never been more lacking in subtlety. (“I’m not looking to restart my life. I’m looking for the off switch!”)
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. Whannell is clearly enjoying writing and directing his own project, and it shows in the finished product.
It’s cathartic to watch Trace, still pretending to be quadriplegic, walk into a bar full of thugs and maximize the element of surprise. The action scenes are stylish, especially the handto-hand combat, which features a kind of staccato robot karate executed by fight choreographer Chris Weir. Credit to Whannell for keeping the camera still, as the plates are flying and the compound fractures are happening.
Did we mention this film is super violent?
It doesn’t have the nihilistic spirit of “Saw,” but it comes close to matching the number of scenes where you’ll wish you were in the next theater for 10 brutal seconds. (It’s not enough to just close your eyes when the knives come out. The
sounds in “Upgrade” should be Rated R.)
“Upgrade” is produced by Jason Blum, who also backed Jordan Peele’s “Get Out.” Whannell’s film isn’t as good, but it has the same feeling of independence — as if the money people had the sense to get out of the way of the art.