Upgrade

The first half of UPGRADE is surprisingly interesting, well executed and fascinating. If it can't ultimately sustain that creativity in its second act, its an interesting miss.

In the near future, which is really well executed visually throughout, technology has overtaken every part of our lives.

We meet Grey working on a classic car and resisting the new technology wherever he can. Grey is well played by Logan Marshall-Green (Prometheus), living in a beautiful modern home with his wife Asha (Melanie Vallejo) who works in a senior role for a huge tech company.

When their lives are turned upside-down in a vicious attack, Grey is nearly mortally wounded, facing recovery as a quadraplegic.

A young, rich industrialist approaches Grey with a breakthrough new chip that could give Grey back complete use of his limbs, and THEN some.

There's a solid 40 minute sequence of the film in which Grey is implanted with the chip, called STEM, he first discovers his new abilities and then decides how to apply them.

It's really well done and had me hooked like some high-tech, bloody mashup of the "Six Million Dollar Man" and "Death Wish".

Marshall-Green is terrific.

When he rolls his electric wheelchair into a bad ass skull & crossbones biker bar, its hilarious, exciting and kick-ass at the same time. The fight scenes are EXCELLENT. There's plenty of humor along the way too, some of it laugh out loud funny.

Eventually, it seems that writer/director Leigh Whannell (Insidious, Saw) just runs out of any good ideas on what to do with his very clever set up.

The last half hour becomes all too predictable, but major kudos to the production team on a great first half and showing how much you can do on a $5 budget, its impressive.

LOVE Stem's voice, great touch.

Fun and smart at first, its too bad the ending didnt get an UPGRADE, then it really could have been something.

As it is, it gets a surprising B-.

You have to love Blumhouse films, turning out quality thrillers/horror films on tight budgets with complete creative control to the filmmakers. They continue to crank out hits!