Film

Upgrade

Name: Upgrade
Genre: Action, Thriller, Science Fiction
Released: 2018
Cast: Logan Marshall-Green, Betty Gabriel, Harrison Gilbertson, Melanie Vallejo, Benedict Hardie

Upgrade is B-movie pulp with A-grade craft: a paralysed man gets an AI implant that rebuilds him into a killing machine, and writer-director Leigh Whannell shoots the fights like a fairground ride – whip-pans, crunching foley, gallows humour, a twist that actually lands. It's lean, mean and nastier than its poster suggests. For anyone who wants a revenge thriller that knows exactly how long it should be.

TMDb rating

3.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like lean, grimy revenge stories where the tech in the body matters as much as the fistfights, and you can take its gadgetry on faith.

Skip it if the fights are frequent and close-up, and the drama stays plot-driven, so if you want slow character work this will feel loud and thin.

What it asks of you: A brisk hundred minutes that tightens early and stays tense, with violence that arrives hard, often and up close, so a strong stomach helps.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

RoboCop1987

The obvious ancestor: a broken man rebuilt by corporate tech into a weapon, played with the same jet-black satire and a body-horror streak Upgrade clearly studied closely.

But The satire is loud and very 1987 – if you want sleek modern effects, the rubber-suit charm may grate.

Bloodshot2020

Take Upgrade's exact premise – dead man, implant, revenge – and blow it up to Vin Diesel blockbuster scale. Fun to watch as the glossy, bigger-budget cousin.

But It's slicker and dumber, trading Upgrade's sly wit and nasty edge for generic superhero-movie plotting.

Venom2018

A man loses control of his own body to a voice that isn't his and starts doing horrifying things with startling competence – same engine, comic-book costume, big laughs.

But It's broader and goofier throughout; the menace Upgrade sustains gets undercut by constant comedy here.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Upgrade

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Demon Seed1977

Same core fear as Upgrade – an artificial intelligence seizing control of a human body – but told forty years earlier as slow-burn dread instead of kinetic revenge.

Decades before STEM, a domestic AI takes over a woman's home and body in this deeply strange, dread-soaked cult curio – the same nightmare of a mind you can't control living inside you.

But Glacially paced by modern standards and genuinely disturbing in a way that has nothing to do with action.

Hardcore Henry2015

An augmented amnesiac fights his way through Moscow in unbroken first-person POV – pure kinetic, punishing action filmmaking with the same relentless, gimmicky energy.

But The first-person camera can induce actual nausea, and the plot exists purely to string action together.

Ex Machina2015

Same anxiety about who's really in control when an AI enters the picture, but slowed down into a tense, elegant chamber piece instead of an action movie.

But Almost no action at all – if you want Upgrade's fight choreography, this will feel glacial by comparison.

Chappie2015

Neill Blomkamp's scrappy tale of an AI given a body and manipulated by the humans around it, with the same interest in tech as both salvation and curse.

But Tonally messier – it swings from sweet to violent to silly in ways that don't always cohere.

The Guest2014

A charming stranger with unnatural physical abilities turns out to be something much darker – Adam Wingard's genre-bender pulls the same rug-yank Upgrade does.

But It leans more into 80s-throwback synth mood than Upgrade's grimy near-future setting, if that's not your taste.

Death Wish1974

The granddaddy of the grieving-man-turns-vigilante template, played dead straight and unflinching – see where the revenge-thriller DNA in Upgrade actually comes from.

But No tech, no twist, no dark comedy – just grim, straightforward 70s vigilantism that some will find morally uncomfortable.

Splice2010

Scientists create something they can't control and it turns on them – Upgrade's body-horror instincts get a fuller, grosser workout here.

But It's stranger and more unpleasant than Upgrade, veering into genuinely upsetting territory by the end.

The Invisible Man2020

Same director, same obsession with losing agency over your own body and surroundings to hidden technology, but swapped from action-revenge into grounded, feminist horror.

Leigh Whannell's next film after Upgrade, and his most controlled: a woman is stalked by an unseen, tech-enabled abuser who's rewired the world around her against her.

But It's a horror film about domestic abuse first, thriller second – there's little of Upgrade's action or dark humour here.

Ghost in the Shell1995

Tackles Upgrade's central question – whose body is this, really, once the tech takes over – through a wholly different medium and register: slow, animated, Japanese, philosophical rather than visceral.

A cyberpunk anime meditation on where the human ends and the machine begins, told through gorgeous, hallucinatory animation and philosophical monologue instead of fistfights.

But Contemplative and talky where Upgrade is propulsive – if you came for action, this will feel like a different genre entirely.