‘Upgrade’ is a visually fun, but extremely violent, revenge flick

Posted on June 8, 2018

By MARK VIOLA

As soon as I saw the trailer for “Upgrade,” I was immediately intrigued by the ultra-violent movie from writer/director Leigh Whannell, who wrote the first three “Saw” movies, as well as the “Insidious” franchise, before making his directorial debut with “Insidious: Chapter 3.”

I haven’t seen any of those movies, but the trailer for “Upgrade” pulled me in with some really interesting cinematography and cool visuals surrounding what appeared to be a pretty run-of-the-mill revenge flick.

Many action movies today, regardless of the story being told, tend to use the same tired methods as far as how they visually tell that story: a lot of quick cuts and shaky cam.
If you think this makes it hard to figure out what’s going on, well, that is the point. The filmmakers are not trying to show you what is happening on the screen. Instead, they’re trying to obscure it, because most of the actors can’t actually do what their characters are attempting. In a world where it took more than a dozen cuts and about five or six camera angles for Liam Neeson to hop a fence in “Taken 3,” you can understand why fans of the “John Wick” franchise — myself included — loved the long takes and wonderful cinematography.

So the idea of another action movie with potentially solid camera work — and a science-fiction angle to it, no less — immediately hooked me. Having now seen the movie, I can say it is just as violent as advertised and, with a few exceptions, the cinematography is quite good as well. What surprised me, however, was how much I enjoyed the story — and the world created around it — as well as the spectacular performance from Logan Marshall-Green (“Spider-Man: Homecoming”).

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