UPGRADE (2018)

RATING: 7/10✅

Action/Thriller/Sci-fi

Grey Trace, a mechanic, asks his wife Asha to help him return a refurbished car to his client Eron Keen, a renowned tech innovator. While visiting his home, Eron reveals his latest creation, a multi-purpose chip called STEM with almost unlimited potential. Returning home, Grey and Asha's self-driving car malfunctions and crashes. Four men attack the couple. Asha is killed and Grey is shot in the neck, severing his spinal cord.

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THE FUTURE OF PORTABLE CINEMA

Details:

Directed by: Leigh Whannell

Produced by: Jason Blum, Kylie Du Fresne, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones

Written by: Leigh Whannell

Starring: Logan Marshall-Green, Betty Gabriel, Harrison Gilbertson

Music by: Jed Palmer

Cinematography: Stefan Duscio

Edited by: Andy Canny

Production Company: Blumhouse Productions, Goalpost Pictures, Automatik Entertainment, Nervous Tick, Film Victoria

Distributed by: OTL Releasing, BH Tilt

Release Date: 10 March 2018 (SXSW), 1 June 2018 (United States), 14 June 2018 (Australia)

Running Time: 100 minutes

Country: Australia, United States

Language: English

Budget: $3 million

Box office: $16.6 million

Critical Response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 87% based on 173 reviews, and an average rating of 7.27/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Like its augmented protagonist, Upgrade's old-fashioned innards get a high-tech boost – one made even more powerful thanks to sharp humor and a solidly well-told story." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by PostTrak gave the film a 78% overall positive score and a 46% "definite recommend".

In The Sunday Times (UK) Ed Potton muses, "apart from a few flimsy special effects ... this is a satire that cleaves dangerously close to reality at times." Emily Yoshida, writing for New York magazine's blog Vulture, said, "A great and grimy little screw-turner of sci-fi schlock, the kind that they truly don't make anymore, the kind that would make Carpenter and Cameron proud." On the other hand, Charles Bramesco of The Guardian said, "While Whannell wrestles with warring desires to fret over the techno oblivion we’re hurtling towards or have a laugh about it, that conflict manifests in a disappointing tonal clash that robs the film of the low-rent fun it could be having."