Hacker Cinema
Upgrade
2018 · Film · 100 min
Directed by Leigh Whannell
A brutal mugging leaves Grey Trace paralyzed in the hospital and his beloved wife dead. A billionaire inventor soon offers Trace a cure — an artificial intelligence implant called STEM that will enhance his body. Now able to walk, Grey finds that he also has superhuman strength and agility — skills he uses to seek revenge against the thugs who destroyed his life.
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21 comments on Hacker News
This reminds me of "Upgrade" – a sci-fi movie about a paralized man who gets an AI brain implant, which can move his body for him. It's pretty decent.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6499752
That's the plot of movies Upgrade (2018) and Rakka (2017).
I dunno, 2015, I'm a little weak on this year: It Follows, Creed, Ex Machina, Max Max: Fury Road, Sicario, The Hateful 8. I'd watch those again with someone any time, and recommend all of them often. Several on my to-watch list most of which I expect to be good, like Queen of the Desert, While We're Young, Slow West, and The Overnight, just haven't made it to them yet. Not an exhaustive list, just gleaned from some titles I have at hand.
2016: Green Room, The Nice Guys, Hail Caesar!, The Neon Demon, Swiss Army Man, Hunt for the Wilder People, The VVitch, Train to Busan, Shin Godzilla, Moana (hey, I like this one), Arrival. Moonlight's on my to-watch and is supposed to be really good.
2017 (I've done OK on catching up with these!): The Lost City of Z, Dunkirk, Low Life, Good Time, Logan Lucky (absolutely slept on, kills it as a feel-good lightweight small-stakes heist movie), Blade Runner 2049, The Death of Stalin (I liked this less than a lot of folks, but given how widely-loved it was, I'm probably the idiot here), One Cut of the Dead, You Were Never Really Here. The Planet of the Apes movie from that year, plus Phantom Thread, and The Little Hours are to-watch for me and come highly recommended.
2018: Annihilation, Isle of Dogs, Upgrade, Sorry to Bother You, High Life, Eighth Grade, the Suspiria remake. To-watch that I expect to be good include Champion (Korean arm wrestling movie—there's another movie by the same name that year), First Reformed, BlacKkKLansman, The Favourite, The Wolf House, Climax, and some others.
2019: HUGE year for the particular (small) set I'm seeing on my list, including a ton to-watch but a bunch I've seen. Uncut Gems, The Lighthouse, Knives Out, Little Women, JoJo Rabbit, Ready or Not, Parasite, Midsommar, The Art of Self Defense, maybe Marriage Story (but if you've seen one Baumbach movie, you've kinda seen them all, and I'm not sure I'd put it above The Squid and the Whale). Midway's a well-above-average war movie and pairs great with Tora, Tora, Tora! as a crazy-long double feature in a really fun way. To-watch list is nuts and I really need to dedicate a month or so to filling out my watched-list for this year: First Cow, The Irishman, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Bacurau, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Farewell, The Souvenir, Blow the Man Down, The Vast of Night, Her Smell, Funan.
It basically just keeps going like that, year after year, and I've barely even tried to dredge up good movies for most of those years, the bulk of it's just stuff that's risen to my attention one way or another, and I'm terrible at keeping up with foreign film especially. I also left off some that a lot of folks would probably include, like at least one Mission Impossible (aside from MI2, I think these are all pretty good action movies, though quality varies a bit) and Avengers: Endgame which, opinion on the rest of Marvel aside (I think it's mostly kinda lazy crap? But was basically entertained for most of them regardless, so I guess I can't complain too much) was a hell of an event. Also Black Panther, which everyone loved but I was pretty meh on (I hate the entire end fight, and it's looooong)
Given the security track record of software in general, not even specifically those of Musk's companies but more broadly zero-days in all the major platforms, I would worry about a scenario half way between the plot of the film Upgrade and the long-standing trope of using hypnosis to turn someone into an unwitting assassin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upgrade_(film)
Some of my favorites (no particular order):
- The Martian
- Arrival
- Snowpiercer
- Annihilation (a bit scary in some parts, but not really horror overall)
- The Congress
- Ex Machina
- Her
- Children of Men
- Blade Runner & the new Blade Runner
- Gattaca
- District 9
- Edge of Tomorrow
- Elysium
- Terminator 1 & 2
- Upgrade
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Mad Max (new one) and Fury Road
On the cheesier side:
- Demolition Man
- Judge Dredd (both the original and the new one)
- Terminator 3 and beyond
- Matrix movies
Grand vistas but slow and sometimes boring, and often haughty / overbearing:
- The new Dune movies
- 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequel (some other number, like 2010 or something, can't remember)
- Interstellar
- Inception
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Of all of those, my top 3 would be the first three (Martian, Arrival, Snowpiercer).
The 2010s in sci-fi gaves us:
- Dredd
- Melancholia (may not qualify for some sci-fi fans, I suppose, and I can understand why—it's so very allegorical)
- High Life
- Under the Skin
- Annihilation
- Ex Machina
- Edge of Tomorrow
- Looper
- Blade Runner 2049
- Sorry to Bother You
- Arrival
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- The Last Jedi (I know lots of people hated it—I think it's the only more-or-less good Star Wars movie since the original trilogy, and was shocked at the broadly-negative reaction, having come out of the theater thinking "finally, we got a good one, even if it did play the ending way too safe; everyone's going to be so happy!". We're not gonna change each other's minds in HN comments. Agree to disagree.)
And that's just the ones I've seen and thought were somewhere between good and great. And that I could remember or quickly find a reminder of with a quick search. I hear very good things about the new Planet of the Apes series (like, "each entry is better than the last" good) but have only seen the first one. Lots of people liked Rogue One, Snowpiercer, Ad Astra, and Interstellar (I didn't, or at least didn't think they were notably good, but hey, lots of people did). Godzilla, Pacific Rim, and Kong were OK romps. Heard good things about Upgrade and Attack the Block, but haven't seen them. The Martian was OK (some loved it). Inception was alright (again, lots of others like it way more than I do).
How many really good sci-fi movies did the 70s produce? The 80s? I think we're doing fine.
Unrelated to "Dogme 95", but a couple of low-budget films I enjoyed, were high quality, and did well in reviews. "Beasts of no Nation" was made for $6M, but it barely avoided losing money. "Upgrade" had a budget of $3M, and fared a little better with a $17M box office draw.
First some that I don't see mentioned here yet:
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Limitless (2011)
Looper (2012)
Upgrade (2018)
Source Code (2011)
District 9 (2009)
Black Mirror S3E2: "Playtest", S4E1: "USS Callister"
The 7 minute YouTube video "Slaughterbots"[1]
The YouTube series The Backrooms[2]
If you are worried about your son hearing swear words and seeing blood, and not just whether or not he will be able to understand/appreciate the movie, then you probably want to wait with a couple of those.
And then I would also agree with those here that mention Inception, Interstellar, Back to the Future, The Martian, Men in Black, Minority Report, The Terminator, Terminator 2, and The Expanse. I also don't think he should have much of a problem following along with The Matrix.
[1]: https://youtu.be/O-2tpwW0kmU [2]: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVAh-MgDVqvDUEq6qDXqORBioE4Yhol_z
I get the sense that you would like some adult themes, but not too slow?
Top of my mind (and in no specific order) would be:
- Dark City
- The Thirteenth Floor
- City of the Lost Children
- Tron (original and maybe new one)
- Interstellar
- Inception
- A Clockwork Orange
- Her (very relevant to our times)
- Dune (2021 version)
- Brazil
- The Martian
- Children of Men
- Edge of Tomorrow (most like Marvelverse on this list but still very good)
- Moon
- Twelve Monkeys
- Upgrade
- The Fifth Element
- Contact
- Okja
- District 9
- Predestination (very relevant to our times)
- Serenity (but might need some prep from the tv show before watching)
- World on a Wire
- The Abyss
- Minority Report (very relevant in our times)
- The Fly
- Videodrome
- Equilibrium
- Strange Days
- The Andromeda Strain (relevant after Covid)
- eXistenZ (trippy but I loved it when it came out and was only around your sons age)
- In Time (interesting class dynamics on display)
- Enemy Mine
- Franklyn (some interesting takes on mental illness)
- The Arrival
Upgrade https://youtu.be/36PDeN9NRZ0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upgrade_(film)
Child's Play https://youtu.be/PeHNLikDiVw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child%27s_Play_(franchise)#Child's_Play_(2019)
Demon Seed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6O1NRs-YuU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_Seed
I can just remember watching this film when I was 3 years old. It CLEARLY had a rather lasting impression on me.
Electric Dreams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNf7bh7cpuI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Dreams_(film)
I was not very impressed, entered Fight Club, Heat and Still Walking (Japanese family drama/comedy) and all movies I got recommend were Japanese, completely unrelated to first two movies, most of them I knew, the free I didn't were not interesting or straight up anime.
Upgrade is pretty mediocre forgettable movie, bit difficult to regimens l recommended good scifi movie, those are rare. From less known Mr Nobody, Her are decent.
Upgrade gets recommended so much and it amazes me. It's the most basic version of a movie with that premise with extremely straightforward plot and acting. There's little difference between watching that and Jackie Chan's The Tuxedo (2002) or really a bunch of other movies. Now, I generally get liking a polished simple movie but recommending it as something special at the level of Ex Machina and Bladerunner is bizzare to me.
Whoa! You're the author of Gnod?
I've used your site gnovies.com and gnoosic countless times and recommended it to friends! Really great tool and I discovered both movies and music I otherwise wouldn't have found.
Example I input: Bladerunner, Inception, and Ex Machina into gnovies and discovered a movie called Upgrade that I thoroughly enjoyed, and otherwise wouldn't have known about. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6499752/)
Appreciate your work, thanks!
PS What do you work on in more recent times?
This is all that needed to be said. Aside from all the other many examples from the post-90s, Upgrade is basically the formula the author is asking for and it came out the same summer this article was written. Hollywood still makes plenty of these types of films, probably more now than before thanks to helicopter money from streaming services. Take Triple Frontier, Extraction just from the last two years. I'm not going to say those are particularly good, but they're exactly the formula the author claims no longer gets made.
The actual difference is these types of movies are no longer tentpoles.
The most unassuming movie I was recommended, but turned out to be spectacular: Upgrade. I read somewhere the producers had really low expectations for this movie as it is low budget and not about comic book superheroes. Apparently, there are no plans for the 2nd installment. But, imho, creative camerawork, beautiful cinematography and wild choreography put it anywhere above and beyond most any superhero flick out now.
The movie that shattered any expectations I had for it: Enter Nowhere. I stumbled upon it on Amazon Prime, thought the synopsis was somewhat interesting and went into watching it with extremely low expectations (the title is crap, the poster is crap, it has Clint Eastwood's son with wooden expression throughout the movie). But this movie turned out to be a trippy puzzle unlike what we are used to (Cube, Saw, Escape Room). Instead of wealthy people with kinky(?) sense of entertainment and insane philosophers, it has something to do with WW2. Unusual.
Low budget movie that takes place in a single room, yet won't bore you even for a second: Circle. It's a survival game movie where predicting the outcome of the game is half the fun. Blew all my expectations out the park. I watched a lot of survival movies of late and this is one of the (very few) best.
The movies that deserved all their hype: Arrival, It, Us, Annihilation. In Arrival I loved the design of aliens, their environment, the way the linguist tries to decipher their language and the final twist. One negative is how the movie deals with geopolitics - it's crude and laughable. For a movie led by kids, It (the movie) is really a solid one. It is polished like a huge budget superhero flick, but also, uh, literate and entertaining. Us is a beautiful, very slick movie that pops in your face. It has a couple of interesting twists and some funny bits. Refreshing break from the regular Hollywood fare(schlock). That said, Us is riddled with holes as if someone shot at it from a semi. But even with that it's fun to watch as Hollywood doesn't make movies like Us often (only on special occasions?). Annihilation is gorgeous. Period. The set design is a work of art and I love the subject matter. Again, H'wood doesn't dabble in this sort of stuff very often. The move signals the ending twist half-way through, but I am not sure it's even a twist. This movie doesn't end with a bang as it's all about the process. To me it is a meditation on research, often frustrating and unsuccessful (though, the linguist in Arrival was very much successful in her endeavor :) The soundtrack is unusual (and beautiful) for this kind of movie (although the movie itself is unusual). I love the sound design in all these four movies. Really attractive.
Among the memorable shorts (I watch a lot of them; I can recall many, but can't remember their titles) I saw are The Gun Fighter [0], Paradox (try solving the problem in the movie before it ends)[1], Thresher [2], Rakka [3].
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWs4WA--eKU
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnfh3qcpBxA
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqNdbHHWtBc
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjQ2t_yNHQs
I've seen this vehicle before, in the 2018 film 'Upgrade': https://www.imcdb.org/v001169007.html
I haven't been to a movie theater in more that 10 years now. Almost every trailer I see looks spectacularly boring. I am not exactly demanding audience either. I just want movies to be (1) fun (2) interesting (3) exciting. The recent-ish movies I saw (not in a theater) that would satisfy the given criteria are It: Chapter 1, Upgrade and Arrival. Hollywood can make extraordinary stuff if it wants, but currently it's tied up with modern day "westerns"(?) aka superhero movies. Aren't people tired of "evil vs good + explosions + unfunny one-liners" formula? What about stories like "I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison or "Blindsight" by Peter Watts? Wouldn't they look insane on the big screen?
so, it is like one step closer to movie Upgrade (2018)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upgrade_(film)
There is a recent movie about AI and body implants called Upgrade. A guy gets into an accident and ends paralyzed from the neck down. A rich guy offers him a chip that sort of combine his mind with an AI. It's low budget, but competent. I highly recommend.
Having just watched the movie Upgrade I had something very different (and scarier) in my head...
I went to see Upgrade last night and they played some facebook apology tour ADVERTISEMENT (because that's what it is) before the movie. Just ridiculous... "we care about your privacy"... yea, not really.