concerningplants

Upgrade is a film that, while I enjoyed it, I never quite understood the tone it was going for. I suspect it wasn't sure what it wanted either. While sometimes it was a bleak dystopian emotional story of a broken man given a second chance at life, it would constantly shift into a high-action bloody comedy thriller that seemingly abandoned its more somber tone.

But still, it was enjoyable on a moment-to-moment basis. The action and violence were wild, the characters were all pretty interesting, the sci-fi aspects were pretty neat. I just didn't feel like it all came together as cohesive narrative or left me with much to chew on.

Ok if I'm gonna judge the movie for how much I enjoyed it 90% of the time... ya it's like a 6-7. But the ending... the ending really ruined the whole thing for me.

I'm not going to spoil but it just made me feel like 1) the tech the movie is about makes zero sense and 2) the main characters arc kinda just led nowhere. I don't get the point of anything in this film.

But if I just think of it like a thriller... it has some good moments. The sci-fi aspect was intriguing for most of the film. But it just soured for me at the end.

I am an absolute sucker for deep space survival movies. There's just something so uniquely unnerving about the concept of being alone in space with the odds stacked against you. It's the kind of existential dread that basically makes these movies horror films in a way. Gravity is definitely one of the more action-oriented films in this niche, but it excels at everything it tries to do with unimaginable cinematic sequences and pure tension from start to finish.

Comparing to something like Interstellar, The Moon, or The Martian - those movies give you a lot more room to breathe and delve into headier themes. I love all of them pretty equally, and this one definitely joins their ranks as a kind of Hollywood action thriller offshoot. It's got so many wild moments of 1,000,000 to 1 odds, and really kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time.

There is an attempt at character growth and some more deep meaningful moments, and honestly it did work pretty well. It's a story of human suffering, and the will to survive despite the innate loss and trauma that comes with the human condition. But Sandra Bullock demonstrated the type of message that the book Man's Search for Meaning was all about - humans will push on as long as they have hope and a reason to do so. This will and hope can persevere through the most horrific circumstances - be it a concentration camp in Nazi Germany or being stranded in space with zero resources while debris launches at you at the speed of a bullet.

Great film, highly recommended.