History Film / Upgrade

'''Gray:''' [[spoiler: Why can't I move?]]\\

** Also of the HyperCompetentSidekick RobotBuddy TokenEvilTeammate. Most media have said character learn humanity while bristling under the orders of the humans, all the while asking themself why they have to put up with them. STEM very much does not learn much from Grey, has him prioritize his quest for revenge ahead of his own physical and mental health, [[spoiler:and is only putting up with him to take over his body in the end. STEM already knows what he wants from Grey, and this is why it puts up with him well before their partnership began.]]

* AllJustADream: [[spoiler: Cruelly subverted. Right before Grey is about to [[TakingYouWithMe shoot himself and take STEM with him,]] he wakes up back in the hospital with only minor injuries and Asha alive, but it's actually STEM tricking Grey in a fantasy within his own mind as it takes full control.]]

* BreathWeapon: Fisk can send out nanomachines from his mouth that, upon entering a target's body, tears their insides to shreds.

* CharlesAtlasSuperpower: Even with STEM's upgrade, Grey is still a flesh-and-bone human: if he becomes such a killing machine, it is because his body now knows exactly what to do in every occasion and can react much faster than a regular one. However, it's implied STEM also grants him some UninhibitedMusclePower.

* DontTellMama: Out of both bureaucratic obligation and the sheer insanity of the situation, Grey puts off letting his mother know that his quadropeligia has been miraculously cured - and that he and the cure have been going out and violently hunting Asha's killers down themselves.

* ForcedToWatch: Grey's wife gets killed and dies before his eyes while he could do nothing to intervene.

* InnocentlyInsensitive: After Grey returns home from the hospital, the SmartHouse asks him if Asha was to join for dinner.

* PetTheDog: While the soldiers who killed Asha are ruthless killers, they seemed to share a genuine friendship with one another. After Tolan is killed, Fisk bids a farewell to his body and notes he didn't deserve it. Later he, and his remaining friend are shown to be pissed that Manny just stood by & didn't nothing while their friend died.

** In the BadGuyBar, Tolan intimidates a temporarily-paralyzed Grey by finding the "magic point" where he will feel pain if cut with a knife (the side of his neck). Once STEM has regained control of Grey's body, he ends up torturing Tolan for information by slicing up that same magic point (even though he's unwilling to actually go through and STEM has to do it for him), and judging by his reaction, it's definitely effective.

* {{Transhuman}}: Artificial construction in people are common in the world of the movie. "Upgraded" humans have received various cybernetic implants to improve motoric functions. Extreme cases like Fisk and his men feature [[ArmCannon implanted weapons]] and recording devices in their eyes in order to make them more effective killers. STEM, an ArtificialIntelligence chip, is the latest invention in the field of augmentation. The fact that Grey has moderate [[{{Technophobia}} anti-robot]] beliefs and thus has no artificial enhancements before being implanted with STEM is actually a plot point. [[spoiler:STEM wanted a body with no other modifications, for reasons ranging from wanting a purely human body to being functionally untraceable]].

* AIIsACrapshoot: [[spoiler:It is revealed that STEM was the mastermind that orchestrated the loss of Grey's physical autonomy and his wife's life, all as part of a plan to be implanted into Grey's body so that it could become human. It hired the {{Cyborg}}s to attack them, instructed Eron to use Grey as his test subject, and instructed Grey on how to find the hacker to free him from Eron's control.]]

%%* CyberPunk: Checks off pretty much every box. - ZCE

* DontTellMama: Out of both bureaucratic obligation and the sheer insanity of the situation, Grey puts off letting his mother know that his quadropeligia has been miraculously cured - and that he and the cure have been going out and violently hunting Asha's killers down themselves.
* DiesWideOpen: [[spoiler:Asha as she succumbs to her wound from Fisk's hand-gun -- [[KickTheDog while staring into Grey's eyes, no less.]]]]

* TheDogWasTheMastermind: The orchestrator of all the events that led to Grey being implanted with STEM and going on a quest for revenge was [[spoiler:''STEM itself'', who did so to get into Grey's body and live as a human.]]

* MilkingTheGiantCow: The first movement Grey does with his hand under the control of STEM is this gesture. [[spoiler:May be an intentional foreshadowing of [[TakeOverTheWorld what STEM was up to]]]].

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: This happens when [[spoiler: STEM kills Eron Keen. With Grey's body, STEM no longer needed Keen.]]
* YouKilledMyFather: In the climax, Grey confronts [[spoiler:Eron telling him that he killed his wife]].

* CrusadingWidow: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with.]] Grey, with STEM's assistance, hunts down and kills the men who murdered his wife and disabled him, but the only reason he got personally involved in the search in the first place is because the police investigation wasn't going anywhere, and his initial reaction to finding one of the men is to call the police and tell them, till STEM points out that there's not enough evidence to convict, so he has to take matters into his own hands. Even when killing them, Grey is A. Physically incapable of fighting trained soldiers without STEM controlling his body, and B. Psychologically incapable of torturing and killing them himself (though he gives STEM permission to do so, generally while he closes his eyes or looks away). However, allowing STEM to use his body to maim and kill others erodes his morality and sanity over the course of the film, [[spoiler: weakening his mind to the point that STEM is able to take over completely, which was its plan all along.]]

* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: [[spoiler:[[{{Deconstruction}} Deconstructed.]] The basic setup is that STEM helps Grey go after the men that killed Asha and paralyzed him, but Grey's [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone shock and horror]] at the sheer brutality STEM is capable of inflicting alongside his increasing resistance against its plans bears down enough on his mind to allow it to be taken over entirely by STEM -- the one who triggered the tragedy that bred Grey's revenge, and TheManBehindTheMan for all the baddies he was mowing through.]]

** Fisk. In a very {{ubermensch}} way, he views cyborgs like himself as an entirely different race, and just plain better than normal humans, on whom he looks down with utter disdain. There's also hints that his fellow ex-military comrades share similar views (or are just plain psychopathic).

** Fisk. In a very {{ubermensch}} way, he views cyborgs like himself as an entirely different race, and just plain better than normal humans, who he looks down on with utter disdain. There's also hints that his fellow ex-military comrades share similar views (or are just plain psychopathic).

** STEM twice makes Grey do a sort of completely straight kip-up that should be impossible to do, not matter how much UninhibitedMusclePower one can collect.

* TheDragon: Fisk, as the leader and most deadly of the four attackers that Grey has to take down before confronting the real BigBad.

** When Grey finds Jamie, he witnesses a group of people playing VR games; Jamie explains that their sessions go for extremely long periods of time, just out of the comfort a "fake world" brings. He retorts, "Why someone would ''choose'' to live in a fake world, I will never understand." [[spoiler:Given his extreme psychological wear by the end, which allows STEM to perpetually lock his mind in a fantasy -- giving him a fake world of his own -- it's safe to say he comes to understand it a lot more.]]
** Right after [[spoiler:STEM's input guards are removed, Grey sees a vision of his late wife. A little later on, he has a dream involving her seeing him while he's in a hospital bed that he says "wasn't a dream" (i.e. the dream felt real). It turns out this is STEM testing the waters for what it does later - plunging Grey's mind into an illusion where his wife is still alive as STEM takes full control of his body.]]

* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: [[{{Deconstruction}} Deconstructed.]] [[spoiler:The basic setup is that STEM helps Grey go after the men that killed Asha and paralyzed him, but Grey's [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone shock and horror]] at the sheer brutality STEM is capable of inflicting alongside his increasing resistance against its plans bears down enough on his mind to allow it to be taken over entirely by STEM -- the one who triggered the tragedy that bred Grey's revenge, and TheManBehindTheMan for all the baddies he was mowing through.]]

* YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: After [[spoiler:Grey and STEM tag-team Fisk (in one body!)]], STEM thanks Grey for his assistance, [[spoiler:without which they both would have died.]] Grey doesn't consider his actions praiseworthy.

* Don'tTellMama: Out of both bureaucratic obligation and the sheer insanity of the situation, Grey puts off letting his mother know that his quadropeligia has been miraculously cured - and that he and the cure have been going out and violently hunting Asha's killers down themselves.