Upgrade, written and directed by Leigh Whannell - Seven out of 10

Upgrade, written and directed by Leigh Whannell

Seven out of 10

There are some interesting, worthwhile, thought provoking, intriguing elements in Upgrade.

Indeed, the motion picture has enjoyed good reviews on average – the Metascore stands at a remarkable 66 out of 100.

Besides, the audiences have also enjoyed the suspense, drama, horror and probably the science fiction side of it mostly.

Nevertheless, if you are not a fan of Science Fiction films, you may find that overall this is not completely satisfying.

Grey Trace is the hero…unless we consider Stem and what it, she or he represents as more important.

The protagonist is married to Asha Trace, a beautiful woman who takes him in her driverless car, intending to arrive home.

In the future proposed by this motion picture, the cars are very intelligent and reliable, supposedly.

The woman makes advances and the couple is ready to have sex in the back seat of the modern vehicle.

Only technology is never one hundred per cent reliable, although the Google and other tests with driverless cars have been practically without incidents, until recently, when a pedestrian walking in the middle of the road has been killed by such a car, without a human driver.

In the feature, the vehicle goes berserk.

The passengers try in turn to get control over the speeding machine but without success.

They have an accident, but the pain and suffering are only beginnings thugs arrive on the scene.

Without much talk and apparently without emotion, they shoot and kill the injured Asha.

Later, on the videos taken by various cameras – one of them mounted on a drone – evidently – we could see there is no gun!

Grey Trace becomes a paraplegic.

He cannot move, desperate and traumatized he wants to end his life, making the machine that administers his medicine inject a deadly dose.

However, Artificial Intelligence is already outstanding.

In the future, you cannot expect it to disobey one of the fundamental rules as listed by Isaac Asimov

Rule number one in fact, which purports that a robot may not injure a human being.

Jeff Hanley, an inventor, entrepreneur, visionary genius – somewhat like Elon Musk, up to a point? – has a solution:

Upgrade!

With an outlandish, evidently futuristic, expensive chip implant called Stem, the invalid would walk.

Besides, he would be to fight like Neo, Morpheus and Trinity in the Matrix, if and when he gives control over his body to Stem.

This is part of the interesting side of this invitation to mediate on the condition of humans in the future.

Is it advantageous to have an Upgrade?

What if it takes control?

There are plenty of moments when Stem defends, revenges, helps the host survive, when he has no chance.

Nevertheless, there is hidden plan, a mystery that unfolds and a conspiracy theory – alas, conspiracies are so popular in a world where everything is attributed to them- not just in this and so many films, but in the real world.

Although interesting, quite a few characteristics made this cinephile Downgrade and finally dismiss to some extent a feature that is supposed to Upgrade and Uplift your mood.