Upgrade Review by Jgames

Venom is the newest movie that was just……. I mean Upgrade is a movie that was produced by Blumhouse production starring Tom Hardy….I mean Logan Marshal-Green and was recently released. If Venom turns out to be a terrible movie, at the very least there will be a good version of the movie call Upgrade.

Upgrade is a movie that takes place in the near future with the main character wife murdered and him being left paralyzed from the neck down. After getting surgery with an AI implant on his back, he can move again and now can hear the AI voice and do other new things. Now he must use his new body and work with the AI to get revenge for his wife murder.

First of all yes, the movie is your basic revenge action movie and is similar to Robot Cop, and Ghost in the Shell live action, and Hardcore Henry and not the shitty remake of Robot Cop. Basically is like Robot Cop or any of the new action movie that is similar to Robot Cop that I just listed. But it does add some new things and is actually quite clever. With some scene that I thought had no purpose, actually does come full circle at the end. With lots of things not quite adding up that I simply thought was a flaw in the movie, actually making sense in the end. With the movie having a great ending and left me ecstatic. Which is not to say the movie is flawless as there is plenty of nitpicks I still have with the story, but they are just really minor flaw as the overall movie was just awesome.

The movie is also a fun buddy movie with Grey, the main character with the AI implant, having to work with Stem the AI. As they both do depend on each other to live as they try to kill the people who murder his wife. With the main character having to go through a gray area where he has to do terrible things but letting the AI do them for him with him facing a moral dilemma with himself and the AI. Because keep in mind that Grey is your average guy. In most revenge movie, the guy is usually an ex-cop, military or something like that, but this guy is just a mechanic. Meaning he does have to rely on Stem a lot, while also being traumatized by having to kill people in brutal ways because he never had to do anything like that. Which makes for an interesting symbiotic relationship that can get quite scary. But at the same time, they can be a lot of fun with their back and forth and a decent amount of humor with great timing. Especially with the fact that his body is moving like a ninja machine while his face is having a bunch of different emotion, being surprised by the thing Stem does with his body. Also, I do like the fact that the movie takes place in the future that does seem plausible. With the future having self-driving cars, drones everywhere and most people have some sort of robotic implants of some kind. With the movie surprisingly having a decent amount of depth with machine versus humans, and other themes. While the movie does feel familiar and sure ⅔ of the movie felt like something I have seen before, the climax definitely helps the movie be different and have more substance to it. Also, I love the villains of the movie, with them having handguns and all this other cool stuff that does give the main character a hard time, making for some awesome fight scenes.

Which speaking of fight scenes, the choreography and camera work was wonderful. With the camera moving with the characters as they move in almost a 90-degree angle when they get up with lots of awesome and unique camera work. The action was fast pace with not a lot of annoying cuts which is great to see in action movies. Also as I said they do have some cool neat robotic technology that they do use in the fights which are awesome to see. The soundtrack was great, giving the fight scene just that extra testosterone that makes it exciting to watch. Plus this movie is rated-R so expect a good amount of blood and gore in this movie. I mean I guess that is a bad thing if you do not like gore, but if you are fine with awesome testosterone blood and gore then you will like this movie. The movie just knew how to be an awesome Rated-R action movie with great camera work

Oh and I should probably talk about the acting; it was good, nothing really much I can complain about. I mean the main character Grey play by Logan Marshall-Green was great in showing the emotional stage the character goes through as one would expect from seeing his wife being murder. Which is important considering the death of his wife is always in the back of his mind throughout the movie. Is not just a guy being angry and wanting revenge, is a guy grieving, and trying to channel that lost into his rage. That being said, he is just an average guy still trying to process everything that is happening. Stem voice is just great and somewhat remind me of the AI in Final Space, just less joke but still have great comedic timing. The other characters did their role just fine, but I did like how one of the henchman villains that basically sounded like Hitler with the all we are the superior race. I find that character just a really fun villain because the actor manages to ground his over the top snobby character if that makes any sense. Overall I had no problem with the acting, it was fine.

While the movie might feel like your typical revenge movie and does feel that way in 2/3 of the movie, it does manage to distinguish itself with the third act on top of the awesome action and great camera work. The actor did a great job and if the Venom movie turns out to be horrible, there will always be this. I definitely recommend this movie and I give this a B+