UPGRADE (2018) and It's Doppelganger

After having recently enjoyed Leigh Wannell’s film THE INVISIBLE MAN (2020) I finally backed up and caught his previous movie as writer-director UPGRADE (2018). Though not as impressive as THE INVISIBLE MAN it is a very good little movie that shows his future is definitely worthy of attention.  

UPGRADE takes place in the near future where we meet Grey Trace, a mechanic that specializes in keeping older cars on the street for very wealthy collectors. One night while on the way home from a visit to one of his wealthy customers he and his wife are attacked. Grey’s wife is killed and he is left crippled from a shot to the spine. This injury leaves him a wheelchair bound paraplegic and his grief and depression lead to serious thoughts of suicide. Just then the wealthy and slightly sinister customer he was visiting the night of the attack offers to implant an experimental computer chip that will give him back his mobility. Grey agrees and then finds that not only does he regain the use of his body but the chip can communicate directly to his mind. Soon he and his new ‘friend’ are looking into the facts around his wife’s death while trying to hide the miracle cure that lets him walk again.

This is a very well-done film and I was glad to finally see it but all the time I was watching something kept nagging at me. There was something oddly familiar about it. Then my girlfriend piped up and noted that this movie was telling essentially the same story as VENOM (2018), the pretty crappy Spider-Man offshoot film from the same year. And she was right! The entire middle section of UPGRADE in which the protagonist is partially taken over by an entity that may or may not have his best intentions in mind is nearly identical to VENOM – only done much, much better. The scenes in this film that show the main character’s horror at what his body is capable of doing when controlled by an outside force are very much the same as seen in VENOM only much more intelligent by far. The super hero (?) film had cardboard characters, bad dialog, a ridiculous plot and an ending so sloppy and stupid that it might well be responsible for brain trauma in younger viewers.

On the other hand, UPGRADE is smartly written with an excellent mystery at its center and an ending that made me respect the film even more than the preceding events had managed to do. It’s a film with the courage to keep escalating its story and include enough well-conceived twists to keep the end point well out of sight until it sneaks up and slaps you. It’s a clever film that I know I will enjoy watching again with foreknowledge of the paths down which the tale turns. I can’t wait to see what Mr. Whannell does next!