History Film / Upgrade

* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
** In order to credibly execute the variety of cognitive applications shown in the film (coordinated motor control, assessment of sensory information, filtering of pain reception, even [[spoiler:producing full-fledged realistic hallucinations]]), the STEM chip should need to be placed on the brain, not on the spine, which has no cognitive functions whatsoever. Even if all of this is essentially MagicFromTechnology, it would still need equally magical RequiredSecondaryPowers to operate on the brain from such a remote place.

* 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.]]

* GlasgowGrin: STEM's first ([[SignatureScene and arguably most memorable]]) kill caps off with a horizontal knife being forced back into its unlucky victim's mouth, graphically splitting his jaw open in [[GrossUpCloseUp excruciating detail]].

* FaceCam: Used throughout the film in select moments as STEM controls Grey's body, serving as a visual indicator of his mechanical movement. The effect was achieved by attaching a phone to Logan Marshall-Green and having an Alexa Mini camera track the gyroscope of the phone. [[spoiler:It gains an eerie new context in the final shot as STEM walks away, and the camera is perfectly synced to its movement.]]

** Of the revenge movie. Grey is not a killer, and every life he takes in his revenge quest takes a toll on his sanity.
** Also of the HyperCompetentSidekick RobotBuddy TokenEvilTeammate. Most shows have said character learn humanity while bristling under the orders of the human cast all the while asking them self why they have to put up with them. STEM very much does not learn much from Grey, puts him on the 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 why he puts up with him well before their partnership began.]]

* TheManBehindTheMan: [[spoiler:After Fisk spills that he was hired to cripple Grey and kill Asha, it's revealed that Eron was the one who hired them in order to find the perfect patient for STEM. But when Grey confronts him (or rather STEM controlling Grey's body), it turns out that Eron was actually following ''STEM's'' orders.]]

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The movie is set in the year 2046[[note]]There is a scene where Grey is reviewing his dead wife's autopsy paperwork. [[UnreadablyFastText When paused]], you could see his wife was born in 2008. At the time of her death, she was 38.[[/note]]. Modern cars fill the highways, yet early-stage or existing technologies like driverless vehicles and home AI are still viewed as interesting new luxuries, and cybernetics appear to still be either rare or prohibitively expensive for most people.

** [[spoiler:Grey lets out several when STEM attempts to use his hands to strangle and later shoot Cortez.]]

* FaceCam: Used throughout the film in select moments as STEM controls Grey's body, serving as a visual indicator of his mechanical movement. The effect was achieved by attaching a phone to Logan Marshall-Green and having an Alexa Mini camera track the gyroscope of the phone. [[spoiler:It gains an eerie new context in the closing scene as STEM walks away, and the camera is perfectly synced to its movement.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:[[TheBadGuyWins STEM wins]]. The entirety of the film's events were actually in service to STEM's true plan to push Grey to his mental breaking point to take over his mind and body, and it goes off without a hitch. It uses Grey to kill Eron and Cortez, hijacks Grey's brain to [[LotusEaterMachine lock his mind away in a dream world]], and leaves, now out there as a murderous genius cyborg with intentions unknown and no one capable of stopping it.]]

** In the BadGuyBar, Tolan intimidates a temporarily-paralyzed Grey by finding the "magic point" (the side of his neck) where he will feel pain if cut with a knife. 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 agonized reaction, it's definitely effective.

* PeoplePuppets: During the first half of the movie Grey has full control of his body, but filtered through STEM's unnaturally precise movements. When Grey gives vocal permission, STEM can take direct control and it's very clear Grey is just along for the ride. [[spoiler: When the RestrainingBolt is removed, STEM can take control at will, and it's revealed STEM's master plan was to take over his body permanently]].

* RestrainingBolt: At first, STEM can assist Grey's movement but cannot independently control his body without Grey's express permission. [[spoiler:When they go to the dark web hacker to prevent STEM from being shut down remotely, STEM gets the hacker to remove the bolt, giving STEM full autonomy.]]

** Logan Marshall-Green reportedly heavily based Grey's movements while under STEM's control off of his main in ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'': Zenyatta.

* WouldYouLikeToHearHowTheyDied: A rare heroic example. [[spoiler:After STEM realizes in Grey's fight with Fisk that Fisk can predict its every move, Grey takes initiative and narrowly avoids being killed by mocking the death of Fisk's brother to make him emotional and throw him off his game -- [[{{Irony}} which is what Fisk had done earlier with Grey's wife]]]].

* CreativeClosingCredits: Inverted, instead of company logos, an artificial female voice reads their names out loud with a wireframe animation of the sound's waveform playing in the background.

* CrusadingWidower: [[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.]]

In a technologically advanced near-future, the life of mechanic and self-avowed technophobe Grey Trace (Marshall-Green) is changed forever one night when he and his wife Asha are mugged by a group of criminals who kill Asha and render Grey a quadriplegic.

** Before Grey's climactic showdown with [[spoiler:Fisk]], [[spoiler:Fisk gets Grey to lose his cool by invoking the memory of his wife being killed, and then mocks him for letting his emotions overwhelm him. Once they fight, Grey finds that Fisk can predict STEM's every move, and it's only after he taunts Fisk by describing how his brother died like a whining baby that he can get ''him'' to lose ''his'' cool, gain the upper hand, and kill him.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:[[TheBadGuyWins STEM wins]], its true plan to push Grey to his mental breaking point to take over his mind and body going off without a hitch. Killing the HeroAntagonist and Eron, it hijacks Grey's brain, [[LotusEaterMachine locks his mind away in a dream world]], and leaves, now out there as a murderous genius cyborg with intentions unknown and no one capable of stopping it.]]

Whannell wrote the first draft of ''Upgrade'' at least six years before making it. The film premiered at South by Southwest 2018 in March of that year, and received American and Australian releases in June.

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: At the hospital, Eron cannot get through to Grey about the operation so he asks what Asha would want for him. Although he shows no reaction, the next scene shows that Grey has changed his mind. [[spoiler:The ending reveals this to be invoked; STEM specifically instructed Eron to ask the question to goad such a response.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:[[TheBadGuyWins STEM wins]]. Before killing the HeroAntagonist and the leading scientist of the time, it hijacks the hero's brain and locks his [[LotusEaterMachine mind away in a dream world]]. Now it is out there as a murderous genius cyborg with intentions unknown and no one capable of stopping it.]]

** [[spoiler:In a desperate attempt to keep STEM from killing Cortez, Grey aims the gun he's holding at his neck. It's at this point that STEM traps him in a LotusEaterMachine and takes over completely.]]

--> ''"Now I answer to someone. Someone much smarter than I ever could be. [[spoiler: He's in your neck.]]"''
* WouldYouLikeToHearHowTheyDied: A rare heroic example where [[spoiler:Grey narrowly avoids being killed by Fisk by mocking the death of his brother to make him emotional -- [[{{Irony}} which is what Fisk had done earlier with his wife]]]].

* UninhibitedMusclePower: Implied whenever STEM takes control of Grey's body, as he makes Grey execute a rather physically impossible kip-up at two different points and can also perform a NeckLift later on.

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** [[spoiler:Shortly after being paralyzed and losing Asha, Grey grows intensely depressed and attempts to kill himself by misusing a medicine-administering robot arm, commanding it to give him a shot over and over again. The machine refuses to give him one more shot -- which would've killed him -- and contacts the appropriate services to save him.]]
** In a desperate attempt to keep [[spoiler:STEM]] from killing [[spoiler:Cortez]], [[spoiler:Grey]] aims the gun he's holding at his neck. [[spoiler:It's at this point that STEM traps him in a LotusEaterMachine and takes over completely]].

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''Upgrade'' is a 2018 sci-fi action film written and directed by Leigh Whannell, co-creator of ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' and ''Film/{{Insidious}}'', and starring Creator/LoganMarshallGreen. After premiering at South by Southwest 2018 in March of that year, the film received American and Australian releases in June.

In the near-future, the life of mechanic Grey Trace (Marshall-Green) is changed forever when he and his wife Asha are involved in a car accident and are attacked by a group of criminals who kill Asha and render Grey a quadriplegic. Sometime later, billionaire inventor Eron Keen offers Grey a chance to walk again by implanting an experimental computer chip called STEM in his spinal cord. Grey soon discovers that STEM has a mind of its own and is more than willing to help Grey catch his wife's killers.

''Upgrade'' is a 2018 sci-fi action film written and directed by Leigh Whannell, co-creator of ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' and ''Film/{{Insidious}}''.

In the near future, the life of mechanic Grey Trace (Creator/LoganMarshallGreen) is turned upside down when he and his wife Asha are involved in a car accident and are attacked by a group of criminals who kill Asha and render Grey a quadriplegic. Sometime later, billionaire inventor Eron Keen offers Grey a chance to walk again by implanting an experimental computer chip called STEM in his spinal cord. Grey soon discovers that STEM has a mind of its own and is more than willing to help Grey catch his wife's killers.

* ForcedFriendlyFire: Grey shoots a mook in the head with his own ArmCannon.

->[[TheStinger "Fuck! GO BACK!"]]

** [[spoiler:Grey also finds himself a victim to this. Even though his cybernetic enhancement is on a much smaller scale (a single computer chip as opposed to Fisk and his gang's upgrades), STEM effectively eats away at his mind until it takes complete control of Grey's body.]]