UPGRADE (Leigh Whannell). 100 minutes. Opens Friday (June 29). See listing. Rating: NNNN

Upgrade borrows liberally from Robocop, Terminator, Death Wish and more 80s fare that already have a litany of knock-offs. The clichés from those movies are Upgrade’s currency and yet this sci-fi action flick about a vigilante with an AI chip in his head feels refreshingly original.

That may just be a symptom of the moment. When four-quadrant franchises take up all the real estate, low-rent throwbacks like Upgrade (and the recent Hotel Artemis) can seem satisfyingly humble and free to invent from within a genre’s shadow. And they’re a helluva lot more fun.

Tom Hardy doppelgänger Logan Marshall-Green stars as the hunky and antiquated mechanic Grey Trace. We see him working on a Pontiac Trans Am in a near future where self-driving cars are the standard, security drones cover almost every citizen’s move and the black market equips bad guys with biomechanical weapons.

Not long after we meet Grey’s wife (Melanie Vallejo), she’s murdered in an attack that leaves him paralyzed, vengeful and eager to install an AI chip called Stem into his spine. Like Google Home making itself at home in your body, Stem (voiced by Simon Maiden) moves Grey’s limbs according to his whims.

So far so “Whatevs, I’ve seen this all on Netfl–”

But wait! Stem starts flexing some muscle and things really get fun, beginning when Grey confronts one of his attackers. Relinquishing complete control of his body, Grey allows Stem to whip his arms around like nunchuks in a gory and slickly choreographed smack-down.

Marshall-Green, delivering an excellent physical and comic performance, holds stiff with jagged but on-the-mark movements while his face looks wildly disgusted, horrified and in tears. He’s perfectly and hilariously detached from the body doing all the slicing and dicing.

The camerawork in this scene (and more scenes like it) is choppy but precise, as if the cinematography has also relinquished control to something inorganic. The frame goes off-axis whenever Grey – steered by Stem – leans back or forward. The effect keeps the cybernetic killer centered, so in control that the universe tips with him… it… them.

From there, the relationship between Grey and the voice in his head resembles something like a grotesque buddy comedy that morphs into a fight for autonomy.

Bodies get hacked. And the movie has a blast with that ongoing double entendre.

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