Upgrade

Here are the alternatives.

The future is ruled by a despotic leader once Earth has been decimated by nuclear meltdown after an alien invasion, or is at the mercy of mad scientists who use technology (robots) to control dissent. It's all about power which, as everyone knows, is a dangerous drug, or about good guys who have nothing but their hearts and minds to rattle the conscience of their oppressors.

Upgrade tries to follow the latter plot path but gets lost in the techno jungle. It is low budget compared with most futuristic epics, which means staying indoors as much as possible. The Shape Of Water stayed indoors and look what it achieved. This, however, is something else, eager to break new ground and yet falling further and deeper into a hole in the mind's core where comprehension is being shredded as we speak and you watch.

In this world of confusion, blamed entirely on the writer/director's concept of tech supremacy, Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) and his wife are letting their car drive them home after a party when they become victims of a hacker who redirects the vehicle to a junkyard where it crashes. Four men are waiting. Grey is shot in the spine and his wife killed.

Grey is a mechanic and one of his clients, Eron Keen (Harrison Gilberton), the not-quite-mad-but-very-clever equivalent of a crazed scientist, has invented a revolutionary chip, called Stem, that can do just about everything, including change quadriplegics into walkers.

Grey wants to find out who caused the crash and murdered his wife. The cops are on the case as well. Stem, the chip that has been implanted into Grey's neck, starts talking to him and slowly infiltrates his brain.

At this point things go doop doop begorrah! Is this Frankenstein's monster in reverse? Is this the revenge of the robots? However the dice is thrown you don't have a clue, like Grey, once Stem starts calling the shots, and there are shots, too many, from guns.

This bespoke script for a brave new world jams in the machine and blows inspiration into a thousand pieces.