'Upgrade' takes up many familiar dystopian sci-fi tropes and fuses them into a generic revenge-action movie. And if you came for the action there is a good change you will like this film. The fighting scenes, involving a combination of (slightly overpowered) superhero physics and grindhouse-like violence, certainly look spectacular, especially considering the low budget. However, if you, like me, came for thought-provoking sci-fi you will probably be disappointed. It's not that it totally lacks great ideas, on the contrary. By touching on too many interesting topics (humanity's increasing dependency on technology, governments and companies experimenting on humans, and, of course, the rise of Artificial Intelligence) you could even argue that the makers bit off more than they could chew. What remains is a cyberpunk action flick that never really goes into depth.
The same can also be said of its main characters, all of which seem to lack any emotional complexity. Even the non-enhanced humans in the story often seem to act robotlike. This especially applies to Eron, but also to Grey, who, even though he is supposed to represent humanity in a world dominated by technology, is practically emotionless throughout the entire movie. The underlying problem here seems to be the pace of the film. With a first act taking up no more than ten minutes, the film takes absolutely no time to develop the main characters beyond the archetypes of the "stubborn technophobe", "brilliant but anti-social inventor", and the "happy-go-lucky wife". Not to mention the machine-hybrid cliche supervillain, who is especially hard to take seriously. The limited time you get to spend with these characters makes it even harder to genuinely feel for them as the story unfolds.
The film, however, does succeed in bringing to life a dark, grim and empty world that feels painfully familiar and realistic - a sheer contrast with the characters that inhabit it. A scene, for example, that clearly stood out for me was the one with VR-junkies in the worn-out apartment building; it beautifully captured the blurred lines between the "real" and the "fake" that we increasingly seem to experience in everyday life. But even during these rare brilliant moments, the film felt rushed and overshadowed by action sequences. Admittedly, the ending was pretty surprising, but this could hardly compensate for structural flaws of the film. All in all, I found it an unfulfilling experience.
The same can also be said of its main characters, all of which seem to lack any emotional complexity. Even the non-enhanced humans in the story often seem to act robotlike. This especially applies to Eron, but also to Grey, who, even though he is supposed to represent humanity in a world dominated by technology, is practically emotionless throughout the entire movie. The underlying problem here seems to be the pace of the film. With a first act taking up no more than ten minutes, the film takes absolutely no time to develop the main characters beyond the archetypes of the "stubborn technophobe", "brilliant but anti-social inventor", and the "happy-go-lucky wife". Not to mention the machine-hybrid cliche supervillain, who is especially hard to take seriously. The limited time you get to spend with these characters makes it even harder to genuinely feel for them as the story unfolds.
The film, however, does succeed in bringing to life a dark, grim and empty world that feels painfully familiar and realistic - a sheer contrast with the characters that inhabit it. A scene, for example, that clearly stood out for me was the one with VR-junkies in the worn-out apartment building; it beautifully captured the blurred lines between the "real" and the "fake" that we increasingly seem to experience in everyday life. But even during these rare brilliant moments, the film felt rushed and overshadowed by action sequences. Admittedly, the ending was pretty surprising, but this could hardly compensate for structural flaws of the film. All in all, I found it an unfulfilling experience.