This is the face of erectile dysfun… No, it's something worse. It is the face of a man long gone. | Source: Screen Connections
If there is one studio that can be thanked for the resurrection of good horror in cinema in recent years, it is Blumhouse Productions. Founded by Jason Blum in 2000, BH's model - known for the production of low-budget films in which its directors enjoy a high degree of creative freedom - has generated such profits and recognition in the industry that, in 2014, Universal Pictures signed a ten-years distribution contract with the relatively young film production company. It's no mean feat: with profitable franchises such as The Purge, Insidious and Paranormal Activity, as well as critically acclaimed solo offerings such as Whiplash (2014), Get Out (2017) and BlacKkKlansman (2018), it looks like Blumhouse will be around for a while.
The possibilities offered by working with Blumhouse have attracted the attention of several directors, who cannot be left out in the recounting of this recent revival of horror and suspense in film: Scott Derrickson, Mike Flanagan, James DeMonaco and the very same M. Night Shyamalan - who currently enjoys a renewed interest in his filmography thanks to the great reception of Split (2017), and the confirmation that the latter film and his next one, Glass (2019), are part of a trilogy along with his classic Unbreakable (2000) - are part of the current list of BH directors. Likewise, James Wan and Leigh Whannell, the co-creators of the multi-million dollar horror franchise Saw (2004 - present), have also made their home in this production company.
While James Wan is currently trying his luck in a field far removed from terror, having been selected by DC Comics to direct his version of Aquaman (2019), his peer's career as an actor, director and producer in this film genre has remained more constant. After directing the fourth part of the Insidious trilogy, titled The Last Key (2018), Leigh Whannell decided to produce, right on his hometown of Melbourne, in March 2017, a film that, although it still drinks much of his previous experience in terror, also takes elements of the cyberpunk and action thriller that result in a tremendously refreshing and ingenious proposal that, although not perfect, has been a huge success commercially and critically speaking.
This film, released in March 2018, is Upgrade.
In the near future, we meet Grey Trace, a freelance mechanic specialized in classic cars. Visibly nostalgic and stubborn, Grey seems to have trouble dealing, not only with a world that has forgotten the quality of the muscle cars of old in favour of advanced automatic driving vehicles - a reality which, by the way, is becoming closer to reality by the day - but also with the dizzying speed at which the world has evolved. It is revealed to us that his wife, Asha, works for Cobolt, a major technology company in the world they inhabit, and that she is the breadwinner of the house where they both live due to the specific and unusual nature of Grey's work. However, our protagonist has reasons enough to be optimistic.
Having secured a contract to restore a vehicle and deliver it to a rich and powerful client, Grey is confident that his fortune will change, so much so that he decides to take his wife to meet his contractor on the day the car's delivery will be done. The buyer in question turns out to be Eron Keen, a young programmer and technological innovator ironically working for Cobolt's rival company, Vessel. Eccentric and arrogant, Keen shows his visitors his latest invention - STEM, a revolutionary artificial intelligence chip that can work like a second brain - impressing Asha and bothering a Grey who believes, with some justification, that such creations only create unemployment and technological dependence amongst disenfranchised workers.
Back home, however, what appeared to be the successful closing of a work contract ends up having disastrous consequences for Grey's life. After a malfunction with Asha's automatic driving system, which causes both of them to crash in a dangerous area of the city - from which we know Grey lived as a child - and be apparently assaulted by petty thieves, Grey's idyllic existence is shattered in two acts: one, the murder of his wife by the aforementioned criminals, and two, a wound received by said thugs that leaves him quadriplegic for life.
Nice couple… It would be such a shame that someone sabotaged their hundred-thousand dollars, highly-advanced concept car | Source: Crome Yellow
With a considerable blow to his ego and testosterone, we see Grey trying to accomodate himself - with little success - to the idea of being a disabled person, having to rely more and more, not only on his mother, but also on the technology he always disdained. He must also deal with the fact that police inquiries to locate those responsible for his wife's death, due to the fortuitous circumstances in which it happened, do not seem to be successful. But one day, in the midst of his convalescence, Grey's last employer reappears in his life with an indecent proposition: that he offers himself as a lab rat to test STEM's goodness in a human body, thus being able to walk and live as a healthy man, at the expense of signing a confidentiality agreement protecting the existence of Keen's creation and keeping it a secret until it proves viable.
The operation turns out to be successful in restoring Grey's mobility... not so much in convincing him that he can start a new life and be a new man. Still haunted by the ghost of his wife's murder, Grey discovers, in his powerless and frustrating analysis of the little evidence the police have collected so far, that Eron Keen's invention secretly harbors a powerful artificial intelligence capable of analyzing and gathering information better than an ordinary human being. Our protagonist does not take long to discover the applications of this peculiar and strange artifact...
... and even less so, in relating it to his search for answers that will lead him to understand the murder of his wife and, ultimately, to achieve the revenge he so desperately needs.
At first glance, Upgrade is a peculiar mix of genres and inspirations. The film's technological setting, although perfectly in tune with cyberpunk classics such as the role-playing games Shadowrun (1989) and Cyberpunk 2020 (1988), as well as with masterpieces such as Blade Runner (1982) and Total Recall (1990), is not so advanced as to make us forget that this is a world that is going through a transition in which, at least for now, few people actually enjoy the benefits of these discoveries. Likewise, the obscurity of the urbanism seen in the film and the state of deterioration show that economic injustices - an important philosophical breeding ground for this genre - have created a society in which even fewer people live in a certain state of comfort.
But, as far as exposure and analysis of these ideas is concerned, Upgrade is not allowed to go much further... and it doesn't have to. Truth be told, what we end up watching in this film is a classic plot of revenge in the style of Death Wish (1974) - disguised in a surprisingly brilliant science fiction costume, considering the budget - which quickly takes on a classic genre such as body horror when Grey faces, by the plot's evolution, a very harsh reality: that he does not control his body because he wants to do it... but because STEM allows it. And it is this dreadful condition, transferred to a powerful character study, that constitutes one of the film's greatest successes.
Logan Marshall-Green, who plays Grey - and whose incredible physical resemblance to Tom Hardy, an internal joke of various film buffs since his appearance in Ridley Scott's unfortunate Prometheus (2012), makes one think that perhaps the aforementioned star would have been the ideal protagonist of Whannell -, does a simply amazing job of showing how Grey slowly becomes a prisoner in his own body. Excluding obvious allusions to The Six Million Dollar Man (1978-1979), much of the narrative tension in the film comes from what Grey has to witness as, blinded by revenge and the need to know who really is behind his wife's death, he decides to bequeath control of his arms and legs to an artificial intelligence whose efficiency in deciphering data from his environment is only compared to the ruthless effectiveness with which he can disarm and injure anyone he comes across.
And Leigh Whannell doesn't shy himself in the slightest to make a violent spectacle of it.
I do not really know what will be STEM's line of work following Upgrade's events… But if I were him, I would found a robotic martial arts' dojo | Source: Inverse
The previous experience of Upgrade's director as a writer and creative behind the franchise Saw definitely makes an appearance in more than one action scene of the film. And it couldn't be otherwise; just as it wouldn't be cyberpunk if we weren't in the presence of some, let's say, pretty peculiar weapons - having a shotgun implanted in one of his arms would delight that great man named Gunther Hermann, for those who played Deus Ex (2000) -, it wouldn't be a Leigh Whannell movie if we didn't see some pretty grotesque and creative ways to die. The fight of the previous photograph is a clear indication of that... and there is more, much more, where that came from.
Returning to the acting, Logan Marshall-Green fortunately has a cast that really knows how to be there, either to maximize the intensity of the horrendous situation he's in, or to reveal to us how human and crude his condition is. Although, for obvious reasons, the pleasant chemistry Melanie Vallejo had with the lead actor during the course of the plot is to be missed, the effective work of Betty Gabriel - responsible for one of the most memorable and chilling scenes of Get Out, and whom we will soon see as part of the cast of the second season of the excellent Counterpart (2018) - as the police officer investigating the case of Grey's wife's death, and Linda Cropper as Grey's mother, make the second act of the film quite enjoyable.
Sadly, the acting work of Harrison Gilbertson, who, either because of the script or Whannell's direction, isn't believable enough as the troubled and unstable genius behind Vessel and the creation of STEM... even though it's good enough to be hated. On the other hand, Simon Maiden, the actor in charge of STEM's voice, deserves a special mention. He makes a perfect duo with Logan Marshall-Green, with a voice so chillingly robotic and devoid of feeling that it makes us think, with good reason, that our protagonist sleeps with the enemy without knowing it.
Kudos to Logan Marshall-Green for doing such a heartfelt, humane acting job as Grey… and for going up and down stairs like a badass | Source: Miami New Times
Does Upgrade have any errors or flaws? None that is that noticeable, but it isn't a perfect movie by any means. That sacred writer's bible which is Story (2010), by Robert McKee, notwithstanding, the plot may not only be predictable for some seasoned viewers who enjoy their dot-tying but, in faithful-enough fashion to horror as a genre, is such a perfect example of an idiot plot - one that only works if one or more protagonists of it have severe difficulties to think and reason - that it can leave a certain taste in the mouth that, while not unpleasant, can be somewhat confusing in a production with such elements.
Also missing is the fact that Asha's killers, though appropriately colorful and well characterized by their actors - Benedict Hardie's work as the leader of the criminals, Fisk Brantner, is as funny as it is frightening... and one of his particular crimes will remain eternally imprinted in the viewer's mind, trust me -, turn out to be just a footnote in the face of the ominous and monstrous true villain of the show. A mystery that any moviegoer will have to discover during the tense and violent end of the film and that, in a twist ending like few others, will leave many with a great feeling of anxiety and discontent...
... just like those only great horror and suspense films can achieve.
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