Upgrade review: Saw and Insidious co-creator's second feature is a blood splattered sci-fi cautionary tale
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Tapping into current anxieties about tech companies that routinely peer into our private lives online, Upgrade is a sci-fi action movie set in the near future about a man who has an artificial intelligence device implanted into his brain.
Reluctantly, it should be said, because Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) is not what you'd call an early adopter. He spends his days tinkering on vintage muscle cars in his garage, in love with the analogue past and suspicious of the digital age he lives in.
But a sudden tragedy changes his mind.
One night, while traveling home with his girlfriend Asha (Melanie Vallejo) in her self-driving car, the vehicle malfunctions and crashes in a bad neighbourhood, after which a band of thugs kills her and beats him so badly he ends up paralysed.
Enter the brilliant, reclusive tech prodigy Eron (Harrison Gilbertson) who explains with chilling, soft-spoken conviction that he can restore all of Grey's physical capabilities and enhance his mind with a single chip.
Grey agrees to the experimental procedure, hellbent on tracking down his girlfriend's killers. But he soon finds that the virtual assistant inside his head — known as STEM — becomes a sinister companion.
Part Frankenstein story, part HAL-inspired cautionary tale, Upgrade is a sugary sci-fi thriller inspired by 80s genre movie heavyweights like John Carpenter (The Thing) and James Cameron (The Terminator).
It's the second film directed by Leigh Whannell, a one-time ABC TV movie reviewer who turned filmmaker when he co-wrote the breakout slasher hit Saw (2004) with James Wan, who has since gone on to a high-profile directing career of his own).
Fans of that franchise will enjoy Upgrade's gory action, but the film's strongest card is Marshall-Green's performance as a man whose body is no longer his own.
Nothing prepares Grey for an early scene in which he hands over complete control of his motor functions to the AI chip — an explosive fight sequence in the small space of a villain's kitchen.
Marshall-Green uses jerky, erratic gestures to evoke the idea of non-human intelligence at work, and Whannell's camera tilts and swipes robotically to follow him.
When his adversary is reduced to a bloodied heap, Grey throws up in shock at what he's done.
From this moment on, it's clear Grey's battle with the voice inside his head will become just as important as his revenge mission.
Underlining how alone he is in this interior struggle, Whannell makes good use of a restrained Linda Cropper as Grey's concerned mother, watching on helpless as her son appears to veer towards psychological meltdown.
Upgrade is co-produced by Hollywood studio Blumhouse Productions — synonymous for low-budget, high-concept horror movies like the Paranormal Activity films — but it was shot around Melbourne, with significant funding from Screen Victoria, and edited in Sydney.
The Victorian capital proved a good choice for its concrete, modernist buildings (RMIT university provides a key backdrop), and production designer Felicity Abbott embellishes these real-life locations with futuristic sets.
She adds an organic twist, too.
Grey's room, for example, has a section of rock face intruding into a smooth concrete wall that's like a sculptural feature resembling a frozen cascade.
It reflects the film's theme of nature and technology melded together, an idea that seems increasingly sinister as the story unfolds.
Tech paranoia is a staple of sci-fi, of course, and Whannell's film is not exactly a new take.
But he puts passion into every blood splattered pixel and the result is a lot of fun, confirming he's a directing talent to watch.
Topics: arts-and-entertainment, film-movies, horror-films, science-fiction-films, thriller-films, director, community-and-society, robots-and-artificial-intelligence, genetics
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