'Upgrade' - Movie Review

Wikipedia lists "Upgrade" as "body horror" (among other things), and there's certainly some truth to that. But it's also thought-provoking near-future science fiction, which is one of my favourite things. Not on par with "Ex Machina," which is the first thing that comes to mind when I think "thought-provoking near-future SF," but still an interesting piece of work that anyone concerned with the future of humanity should watch. It's also a fairly entertaining revenge flick, with all kinds of added twists ...

Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) is a car mechanic of the old-fashioned, drive-them-yourself variety of cars, whose wife works for the computer tech firm Cobolt. When she's murdered and he's left a quadriplegic, he accepts the offer of one of his patrons (the very rich owner of another tech company) who implants a chip that restores control of his body. This is an illegal medical test, so he has to keep it quiet. But when he can get some time unobserved, he follows up on the murder of his wife that the police have had no luck solving ... with the assistance of the AI that's now mediating his access to his own body. Which turns out to be very good at both detective work and killing.

The movie is many things: a violent revenge flick, a horror comedy, and in the end a depressing cautionary tale about technology. I didn't love the ending, although I didn't disagree with it: I just felt like the tone of the movie as a whole deserved a slightly less dark ending. Regardless, both an entertaining and interesting piece of work.