[yasr_overall_rating]
Set in the near-future, technology controls nearly all aspects of life. But when Grey, a self-identified technophobe, has his world turned upside down, his only hope for revenge is an experimental computer chip implant called Stem.
Tom Hardy is an actor I have long admired. From his early days in movies like “Star Trek: Nemesis” right up to “Bronson,” “Inception,” and “Mad Max: Fury Road,” he is reliable, steadf………wait a minute, Tom Hardy isn’t in “Upgrade,” that would be Logan Marshall-Green. But you would be forgiven for thinking it was Tom Hardy as both men look exactly alike. They are considered Hollywood Doppelgangers and when the trailer for “Upgrade” was first released, I was confused because I knew about Hardy’s upcoming movies and had heard nothing about this film. You can’t help but see Hardy in Green’s performance but he is a talented actor in his own right and does a commendable job herein.
In “Upgrade,” he plays Grey Trace, an auto mechanic in a not-too-distant future where America is governed by drones. Criminals have the ability to have gun mechanisms implanted in their arms so they never have to fire a gun and leave fingerprints, just open the palm of their hands and shoot. There is also self-driving cars which most of society utilizes, except for Grey, he is old-school, drives his own vehicle, a Pontiac Firebird, and fixes up old automobiles for die-hard rich car lovers. He lives with his wife Asha (Melanie Vallejo) in a nice house in the suburbs and after fixing up a car for one of his clients, he makes his way to his sprawling estate to drop it off. Asha follows him and once they arrive at their destination, she realizes the customer is none other than Eron (Harrison Gilbertson), a tech mogul whose prosthetic company concentrates specifically in artificial limbs for veterans. On their way home in Asha’s autonomous car, the vehicle apparently malfunctions and the car crashes in a bad side of town. After being pulled from the wreckage, a group of thugs kill Asha and shoot Grey, leaving him for dead.
Grey survives and winds up a paraplegic in a wheelchair but when his former employer, Eron, arrives in his hospital room one day, he offers him the chance to get revenge on the men who killed his wife and left him paralyzed. Intrigued, Grey travels to Eron’s estate once more and discovers his creation, an artificial intelligence implant called STEM that will enhance his body and allow him to walk again. He agrees to the operation and is told he can tell no one about it, not even his mother. The operation is a success and Grey, capable of walking again, soon discovers that he also has superhuman strength and agility, traits that come in handy as he tracks down and eliminates, one by one, the men who killed his wife. When a cop starts investigating, Grey must do everything he can to finish off the remaining thugs without being caught but it soon becomes apparent to him, that STEM is not what he thought it was, and that the A.I. within him, has a mind of its own.
Writer and director Leigh Whannell, the man responsible for creating the “Saw” and “Insidious” franchises, here branches out from his established horror genre to give us, well, a new kind of horror, the horror of artificial intelligence gone awry. As Grey becomes accustomed to being agile again, he hears voices in his head, leading him to the conclusion that he is going crazy but the voice informs him that it belongs to STEM, and that it can communicate with him and that only he can hear it. When Grey finds himself in a precarious situation involving the thugs who killed his wife, STEM tells him that it can take over and once it does, with Grey’s permission, his physical movements are superhuman in nature, allowing him to dispatch his adversaries in the blink of an eye. In the first scene where this is presented to us, you find yourself cheering Grey on, exacting much-needed vengeance on one of the men who took his love from him. Naturally, Grey works his way up the chain until he comes face to face with the gang’s leader, Fisk (Benedict Hardie), but instead of executing him quickly, Fisk exhibits the same attributes that Grey employs, and we have an exciting, bone-crunching bionic showdown.
While the film is set in the not-too-distant future, the comparisons to many of today’s technological advances, are eerie. We now have autonomous cars, although they are still in the early stages, and we also have computer chip implants, so you actually find yourself watching the movie and realizing, it’s not a matter of if we’ll ever get to this point in time, but when. “Upgrade” is an adrenaline rush of excitement and Logan Marshall-Green is the next big action hero. If you are looking for a fun night out, and are tired of superhero movies, “Upgrade” makes for a nice alternative but be warned, while there are some pretty electrifying actions scenes, there are also some pretty gruesome deaths. If you can get past that, then you’ll love “Upgrade.”
In theaters Friday, June 1st
