Imagine a scenario in which HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey became a brain implant that could control your body. Terrifying right? That’s essentially the premise of writer-director Leigh Wannell‘s new film Upgrade.
When a vicious attack ends with deliberate Luddite Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) paralyzed and his wife Asha (Melanie Vallejo) murdered, Grey loses the will to live until a former client and young tech genius, Eron (Harrison Gilbertson) offers to give him a top secret implant that will allow him to walk again. However, the operating system running the implant soon starts talking back and decides to help Grey get revenge on the men who killed Asha. The result is a violent but surprisingly funny bit of neo-noir cyberpunk that fully delivers on its premise.
Though the story takes place in the future, it’s not that distant. There’s more advanced tech like self-driving cars and bio-mechanical upgrades, but it’s all in early stages and it’s easy to imagine that this future is only a few years away. The film’s look only emphasizes that. The interiors are ultra-modern, which only makes the grittier, more low-tech places like a gangster bar or one of the assassins’ homes look more dangerous. Cinematographer Stefan Duscio keep the lighting low and shadowy, making the moments when a blue or pink light from some sign shines from just outside the windows even more stark. There’s a gloss to the images, but it still feels more cyberpunk than neo-noir.
Narratively, however, the film is pure noir. We’re technically rooting for Grey, but Betty Gabriel’s Detective Cortez is so competent that you almost want her to catch him. One of the film’s best scenes comes when Grey and his mother (Linda Cropper) visit Cortez at the precinct. Cortez is personable and talkative, but Grey quickly sees her friendliness for what it is: a smokescreen for the fact that the investigation into Asha’s death has stalled. In lesser hands, Grey could come off as an unwitting John Wick, avenging his wife’s murder rather than his dog’s. As played by Marshall-Green, Grey becomes the straight man in a buddy cop move with STEM as his goofy sidekick.
Though Upgrade is mostly a moody neo-noir, the action scenes also show its sense of humor. Grey isn’t supposed to be in control when he’s fighting and Marshall-Green makes us believe he isn’t. While the rest of his body moves with shocking swiftness and violence, his face constantly shifts between passivity, shock and horror. In his first encounter with one of the men who killed his wife, he’s impressed by what STEM can do until things escalate. It’s almost too brutal, but Marshall-Green mitigates the horror of the scene by being an outlet for the audience’s discomfort. He’s just as horrified as we are, and he reacts with the same groans we do.
Though the fight scenes are the best showcases of Marshall-Green’s physicality, the way he moves throughout is largely responsible for selling us the concept in the first place. As Eron explains it, Grey’s brain tells STEM to move his body and the computer is responsible for that movement. While there’s an elegance to Marshall-Green’s movement post-accident, there’s also a robotic-ness to it. The way he pours alcohol into a glass is fluid but angular. There’s something about it that reads artificial.
Leigh Wannell’s film takes place in a future that doesn’t seem that far off from our present. Though its brand of cyberpunk body horror is something we’ve seen in films like Robocop, Her or Ex Machina, what makes Upgrade impressive is just how well it explores every aspect of its premise. Technology’s capacity to dehumanize us isn’t just about bio-mechanical upgrades, escapism, over-reliance or even about playing God. It’s about all of those things and Upgrade plays with each of them. How lucky that the audience gets to play too.
Rating: 8/10
