Review of Upgrade (2018) by Grantd243 — 03 Jun 2018

Upgrade is set in a futuristic world and follows a man named Grey, who is attacked by a group of men and left paralyzed. His wife was killed in the attack. He is left unable to do anything himself and he essentially becomes a broken man: angry over the lack of progress in his wife's murder case and frustrated with life in general.

He even tries to kill himself at one point. Eventually, a billionaire who Trey restored a car for offers to provide him with a chip, called STEM, that will allow him to walk again. Grey rejects this offer at first, but he eventually gets the chip implanted.

He then goes on a quest for revenge. I'm always curious to see how Blumhouse's non-horror movies fair, because it's harder to produce them for the small budget that Blumhouse typically works with. And, man, they produced a very solid movie considering the budget.

However, there are some problems that hold it back from being one of the best movies of the summer. The action in this movie is great. It has a John Wick feel to it, but it's more hand-to-hand combat than gun play, and every time STEM takes over for Grey the moves are very precise, which made the scenes even more fun to watch.

Unfortunately, I feel like I got shorted a bit in the action department. If there was a couple of more action sequences, I think I would have liked the film even more. But I walked out wanting more action than what I got.

The story is much better than I expected, but it does drag a bit in the beginning when everything is getting set up. But, despite the beginning being slow, it does make us care for Grey, which is a good thing considering this is essentially a revenge tale.

If I didn't care about him, I wouldn't really care if he got his revenge or not. Also, I was very satisfied with the ending. The dialogue is a bit painful at times, which seems to be a bit of a staple in most Blumhouse films.

Luckily, this movie doesn't rely too much on having strong dialogue. The acting is good for the most part, but the real star of this movie is STEM, which is the chip that is implanted in Grey. Being able to hear him talk to Grey and watch his "character" progress is the most interesting part of the movie.

Overall, Upgrade provides entertainment without completely sacrificing a complex story, and it makes the most of its small budget.