UPGRADE (2018) ***

The future.  When?  It’s hard to say.  Self-driving cars are commonplace.  So are operations that can give you cyborg attachments like handguns.  I don’t mean like a pistol.  I mean, like you can have a hand that shoots bullets.

Grey (Logan Marshall-Green) and his wife Asha (Melanie Vallejo) are on a night out when their self-driving car malfunctions in the bad part of town.  A gang of muggers descend upon them, killing Asha and shooting Grey in the spine.  Grey is paralyzed and left sulking miserably in a wheelchair.  After a failed suicide attempt, a brilliant tech geek (Harrison Gilbertson) offers to give him STEM, a new technology that will allow him walk again.  Grey eventually uses all of STEM’s vast capabilities to track down the men who murdered his wife.

Leigh (Insidious:  Chapter 3) Whannell’s Upgrade feels like a low-fi mash-up of Death Wish and Robocop, with a little bit of 2001 thrown in for good measure.  The little voice inside Marshall-Green’s head sounds very much like HAL, which should’ve been an immediate red flag for him.  Then again, it’s hard to dislike STEM, especially when he can download Kung Fu moves into your brain that would make Neo from The Matrix envious.  

Upgrade announces Logan Marshall-Green’s arrival as a physical comedian.  Sure, he’s good when he’s brooding over his wife’s death, but he levels up once STEM takes over.  He’s especially great during the fight scenes where he’s not in control of his own body.  He has some moments here that would make Jackie Chan himself smile. 

Whannell delivers a film that is down and dirty fun.  He does a particularly great job with the inventive fight sequences and fills the movie with gory kills and crowd-pleasing moments.  I can only imagine what he could’ve done with a bigger budget.  Although I wonder if the film would’ve been able to retain its scrappy charm had Whannell been given more money to work with.  

Sure, there’s some cheesy moments here (like the killer sneeze scene).  The bad guys are kind of boring too and some of their gimmicks are lame.  The finale plods a bit as well, but there’s more invention and fun here than most action/horror hybrids.  

Marshall-Green gets the best line of the movie when he says, “Have it your way, cock snot!”