Leigh Whannell's Upgrade

We can call Upgrade a cross between Blade Runner and John Wick, but if you think you are watching a film based on a story by Philip K. Dick, you would be wrong.

Directed by: 

• Leigh Whannell

Written by:

• Leigh Whannell

Cast: 

• Logan Marshall-Green as Grey Trace
• Betty Gabriel as Detective Cortez
• Harrison Gilbertson as Eron
• Melanie Vallejo as Asha

Length:

• approx. 100 min

Genre:

• Thriller
• Sci-Fi
• Action

Everywhere I go in the interwebs, I only see people saying good things about Upgrade, so I went in pretty positive that I was going to enjoy this Sci-fi/ Revenge/ Thriller, and sure enough, I did.

I mean, what is not to love? Violence, gore, twist, turns, and my newest celebrity crush Logan Marshall-Green, all the clues point for Upgrade to be the winner that it is.
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Grey is a simple man living in the future: he’s got a sweet job fixing old school cars and loves his wife - that’s all he cares about.

When out of the blue a gang of toughs kill his beautiful spouse and leave him paralysed from the neck down, his priorities shift a gear (ba-dum-tss) and after a quick succession of events he acquires a pretty out there futuristic enhancement,

Grey then makes the decision to seek revenge and get the people that ruined his life.

We can call Upgrade a cross between Blade Runner and John Wick, but if you think you are watching a film based on a story by Philip K. Dick, you would be wrong.

Upgrade was born in the mind of writer/ director Leigh Whannell and if you like Horror flicks you should be familiar with his name, and even his face.

In fact, Leigh is better known for: having the genius idea, writing (together with James Wan) and also starring in the first Saw; co-writing, again with Wan, Dead Silence; co-writing and starring in the hilarious Horror-Com Cooties, and to prove he’s only human, he sadly burdened humanity with the wildly overrated Insidious franchise, and even had a hand at directing the third... But hey, no one is perfect!
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Upgrade is only the second try behind the camera for Whannell and this is, in every aspect, light years away from Insidious 3.

First of all Upgrade is original – have you ever seen anyone killed by a sneeze? Of course you haven't! Unlike Insidious, Upgrade won't let you down in the second half of the movie by shifting to a dumbass other dimension, and it also has some seriously awesome camera action going on and the added bonus of humour that really came out of nowhere, but was more than welcome; it was needed to break the tension.

"For a few seconds at the end of the film, do try and restrain from the urge to throw your TV out of the window, because if you wait a little longer you will see you did not waste 100 minutes watching this movie"
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​Some fussy people might have a gripe with the fact that there might be a few plot holes, but who cares? What Sci-Fi film doesn’t?

For a few seconds at the end of the film, do try and restrain from the urge to throw your TV out of the window, because if you wait a little longer you will see you did not waste 100 minutes watching this movie, the real ending is actually pretty dark.
 
You will also be happy to know the chances of a sequel have already been taken into consideration, even though at this point the information is at a bare minimum.

​8/10

Written by Mags.

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US Amazon

Upgrade [Blu-ray]

Aussie Amazon

UK Amazon

Related Reviews:

Does Detective Cortez look familiar? She sure does if you have seen last year's hit Get Out, as she plays freaky maid Georgina.

Add some beard and hair to Logan Marshall-Green and he would look more like his character in the super tense 2015 flick The Invitation.

We are calling Upgrade an awesomely weird Sci-Fi that exorcises the brain. Just like Annihilation did to us when it hit Netflix a while back.