If you’re the sort of person who scoffs at the idea of inviting Alexa or its electronic kin into your home, you’ll have some empathy with the grumpy Grey Trace (Marshall-Green), who would rather spend time tinkering with classic muscle cars than letting one drive him around. But when tech pioneer Eron (Harrison Gilbertson, playing a twitchier but less smug version of Elon Musk) offers to help Grey move again after an attack leaves him a quadriplegic and his wife dead, Grey chooses to accept a little AI help. With a chip called Stem (voiced in soothing, HAL-alike fashion by Simon Maiden) installed in his neck, he becomes a jittery vigilante, taking down the criminals responsible for his situation while also trying to outsmart the detective (Betty Gabriel) on his case.
Writer/director Leigh Whannell trades horror for sci-fi action and manages to cook up a genre stew that’s satisfying even as some of the ingredients feel familiar. Fortunately, the blend of Black Mirror and something more along the lines of a Cronenberg film (certain fight scenes are not for the squeamish) has enough on its own mind to warrant interest, presenting both the tech-obsessed world and the problems that might come with it. Several sequences are kinetic and chaotic, including a couple of Grey’s encounters with the villains, and an inventive car chase that pits smart cars against old-fashioned engineering.
Marshall-Green makes for an identifiable hero, frustrated by his situation and later worried about how much control he’s handed over to Stem. Whannell keeps the pace brisk, and if the emotional elements can’t quite live up to the rest, coming across as stodgy and manipulative, it’s not a drag on a movie like this. Upgrade is unafraid to fully embrace its pulp, low-budget roots, getting the most bang, crash and wallop for its buck.
