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UPGRADE - in which the 'husband seeks revenge' trope gets fucked sideways, and something on the periphery reminds me of Pi. In the vaguely distant but unspecified future some hot, masculine dude still wants to drive cars the old fashioned way, and his future-savvy wife thinks its cute. His name is Grey, and he builds/restores muscle cars for money, and today he has built a car for a rich weirdo who lives in a desert in the basement. His wife comes along for the ride, and also so she can drive him home, in her self-driving car. On the way home, the car goes haywire and they crash, and some merc looking dudes come up and shoot him and his wife. Upon awakening, Grey is mostly paralyzed, and he is immediately suidical, even though his nice mom is there to help with adjustment. Grey is beyond pissed that he needs robots now. Fuck robots (not really!). So, the weirdo he sold the car to brings him out to the desert again, and offers him a chance to wear this new AI microchip out, because it will co-pilot with his brain and let him walk again. It reminds me of the microchip from Pi. It is a super secret surgery, Grey has to pretend to still be quadriplegic, and the chip has its own name, it is STEM. So, STEM talks to Grey, and they end up getting along, and STEM is really helpful in Grey's revenge quest to find out who killed his wife, and why. I just thought of it, but I like that the voice of STEM is masculine, but that might be because it figures Grey out and knows how to best approach him. Whatever, I'm just tired of female voice assistants.
     So, while Grey is out interrogating the first dude the clues lead him to, STEM offers to help. Grey agrees, and while he does get some results, he also murders the bad dude in this crazy disgusting way. Grey is freaked out, but maybe getting addicted to revenge, and he gets some more clues. Oh! The police have been working on this case, but they haven't really gotten anywhere, but they do end up finding evidence of Grey being near the guy's house he murdered, and the smart detective has a hunch, but Grey can't even walk, so how could he have killed that guy? Right. Betty Gabriel is the smart detective. Anyways, the plot follows these clues, and STEM gets more aggressive and brutal with every interaction, and Rich Weirdo Genius doesn't like Grey getting on the cops' radar, as the tech is supposed to be secret. So, here's where things kind of coalesce. Grey needs to hack STEM'S system so he won't get disabled while he's out getting revenge, so STEM leads him to a hacker who helps jailbreak STEM. Once STEM gets out, he hijacks Grey's body, and is focused on a need to "finish the mission," and the trail of bodies is leading back to some crazy biotech dudes with guns IN their arms, and leads back to the Rich Weirdo eventually. What a twist! Turns out, Grey's adorable wife was colateral damage, and STEM masterminded the whole thing from inside a gift box, and his target was Grey, because non-chipped humans are hard to come by. I have to watch it again to remember exactly what happens at the end, but there is a strong battle between Grey and STEM and for a second I thought the whole movie was "just a dream," and I was pissed, but that's not what happened. Omg. It was so good. 5/5.

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