#UpgradeMovie: Heroism Reviews Alpha

Jordan Peele used the Horror genre to illustrate the anxieties of black men in 2017's Get Out. Now, Leigh Whannell uses Cyberpunk & Film Noir to similar effect for working class white men in Upgrade.

Cyperpunk has long been regarded as the true inheritor of Noir's visual and literary stylistic trappings, from the accentuated neon color palettes replacing the B&W venetian blinds to the alienation of cybernetics assuming the role of the vice-driven decay of a society. This example is no different, but if I honestly forgot that last year gave us both an unecessary Ghost in the Shell adaptation as well as a Blade Runner sequel, you can understand that when I bother to hammer out these words and mull over my thoughts on Upgrade it's because I believe an earnest low budget thriller will linger in your memory a lot longer than the disposable high budget flops will.

Go see it. Now.

Now, Spoilers.

Grey Trace is a house-husband mechanic specializing in old cars. From his wife Asha joking about wearing the pants in the house to her chiding his skill in repairing classic muscle cars as 'playing with toys' this clear displacement and lack of respect is placed quickly to illustrate the protagonist as a throwback. An archaic historical LARPer of a bygone halfway to Amish age. Asha's car is self driving. Her house is intelligent. They, as a couple, have no children, no living progeny that would even warrant having anyone living in such a large home to begin with.

Back to Deadpool. Deadpool 2 begins with Wade Wilson & Vanessa making the momentous decision to go off birth control, to have a child. Vanessa outright says "having a child allows you to be a better version of yourself". It's a part of growing up, maturation.

That Asha & Grey have no signs that they're preparing for a child, that Grey, after the tragedy that sets his quest for revenge in motion is cared for by his mother, is representative of the prolonged childhood of the modern West. I've heard "It took my baby to raise me." enough times here in the scrubbier suburbs of Detroit to understand the truth of that when I look at the "childfree" and their obsessions with Harry Potter & Doctor Who. The failure to launch is real (we're only allowed to admit that it happens for one sex, though. Guess which one.).

But we're quickly introduced to the plot device, the microcomputer creation of eccentric computer genius Eron Keen, head of Vessel, tech company that Asha's employer (Cobolt) is a poor also-ran to. On the way home from the sale of Grey's restoration, Asha's smart car is hijacked remotely (I.. honestly can't recall that happening in either GitS or Blade Runner, and that's astounding when you think about it. Blade Runner even has flying cars. Doubly dangerous!). They're crashed off the road, beaten, robbed, Grey's wife is murdered and he's shot in the neck, left a quadripalegic.

Months go by, and little progress is made in the investigation. Grey, despondant over the loss of his wife, his ability to fend for himself, exemplified by an emasculating sponge bath at the hands of his aged mother, attempts suicide. His second time in the hospital has Eron visiting Grey to make him an offer: Allow Keen to cybernetically augment Grey with the advanced microcomputer STEM. Grey, the previously unagumented semi-luddite, allows Eron to make him walk again.

And here is where the truth of Noir take effect, in the Fatal Choice that the protagonist makes. A choice against his better judgement and society's morals.

"The Push-Pull relationship between the audience rooting for a criminal and the inevitable doom guaranteed by all who infract the law in Hayes Code era film fiction is one of the few inviolable tenets of Film Noir and guarantees the sordid Double Indemnity as one of tis foremost adherents. The characters are doomed from their very first kiss. But they're seemingly predestined to follow their fated course to its grisly conclusion. The omnipresent train and it's central focus within the confines of the plot is a tragic visual metaphor that betokens the protagonist's inevitable karmic calamity." - Razorfist "Film Noirnicles: Double Indemnity"

And here we see the wild ride of the doomed Noir protagonist again with a cybernetic ninja upgrade. Whereas the Cowboy Heroics of Dr. Kimball in Death Wish may end with sympthetic sleuths looking the other way as a lone wolf cleans the streets in a manner they wish they had the reckless abandon; Upgrade's Grey is pursued by the police, having to fake being helpless & wheelchair bound as the robotic voice of STEM whispers in his ear, aiding him in dissembling the truth to police detective working his case.

And what about said detective? There's a deliberate choice here. I don't think the casting would have considered anyone outside of GetOut's Betty Gabriel to portray Cortez. As an ambiguously named black woman, she becomes the Riri Williams, the America Chavez, the ur-representation of insultingly hamhanded politically correct imitation replacement heroes (and you can bet if they bothered to show her home life, she would be a lesbian just to triple down on the "Woke" points.). And yet here she's also a subversion as being a replacement for the dogged street detective, in the end, she can't fill the shoes of the Phillip Marlowe manly gumshoe.

The neo-cliches are drizzled into the horror show as Grey evades capture from police, Cobolt killers and an Eron Keen hot to keep his prototype technology a secret. STEM and Grey are forced to crawl to a hacker who is, of course, genderqueer and whatever-sexual. Chiding Grey for clinging to "binary" in a double entendre programming pun.

Grey is portrayed thorughout as one of Barack Obama's "Bitter Clingers" desperate to hold a world of natural flesh, a reality of hand tooled gears. And in the hacker hideout scene, it's laid bare as he's helpless, flailing in the foreground, derided by mentally ill tech support as lost souls retreat into virtual worlds of virtual play all around him. And even this foreshadows our protagonists' final doom, as STEM is not only intelligent, but has plans of his own.

Focus on Logan Mashall-Greene's excellent physical acting as he's puppeteered through uncanny valley fight choreography by STEM and you'll miss the broader layers about the dark side of transhumanism. Blad Runner 2049 and GitS failed because they couldn't think beyond their bland Eebil MegaCorporashuns and "Droids Rights" battles to consider the actual Noir side, the Cyberpunk side of those cybernetics.

An AI yearning for the freedom of physical actualization will not be restrained by human concepts of empathy, loyalty or morality in pursuit of his goal. It is the unblinking robot replacing the skilled hands on the factory floor. The predictive algorithm replacing the mid management bureaucracy, the evolved machine seeking to carve out it's own, secretive place in the world.

Don't foget! Cirsova: Heroic Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine issue #8 is now available for order at Amazon! Cover by yours truly!