UPGRADE (2018)

Smart little futuristic thriller from fast-rising writer/director Leigh Whannell about a hands-on analog guy in a hands-free digital tomorrow who loses his wife & wakes up paraplegic after an inexplicable hit-and-run set up.  Luckily for him, his last delivery (he restores old-school GTO roadsters) was to a Steve Jobs/Elon Musk type who has just the widget (experimental/untested) needed to rewire his bod back into action.  Once on his feet, he turns to revenge, hunting down the perps who ruined his life, getting a little too much help from that implanted microchip which soon threatens to take complete charge over the human frame it’s lodged in.  Zippily handled and often very funny (in a sick, violent way), the film is to some extent held back by needlessly bad acting (Whannell excelling on the  technical side) and by a host of derivative homages: expected (BLADE RUNNER; JOHN WICK) and ‘un’ (THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN; the old Edmund O’Brien version of D.O.A.).  Even the voice of 2001's HAL-9000 shows up, imitated for ‘Stem,’ the controlling spinal plug-in speaking inside the head of our recovered victim.*  Whannell also can’t get past his own decidedly unsurprising ending, though he tries teasing it out with a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too twist.  (You can all but hear studio execs debating which ending is the better bet for a possible sequel.)  Plenty fun in spite of missteps, perhaps even more valuable as portent of things to come from the talented Mr. Whannell.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *No titles, but this modest film already better than some of its precursors.