Film Review | "Upgrade": How should I live with my body?

Upgrade" is a movie that is ostensibly about a man who gets caught up in a conspiracy to avenge his wife with the help of a smart brain chip, but it's actually about how to live with your own body. The matter of getting along with one's own body is something that individuals can do very well. We are born as human beings, we can use our fingers to tap the keyboard nimbly; use our feet to pedal a bicycle; dodge under the basketball hoop, carry away the opponent's strong defender, and put the ball into the basket. It is a human instinct to be friendly with one's body.
But this is limited to normal circumstances. In movies, there are often protagonists whose bodies become unusual because of some abnormal circumstances. For example, "Fury" among the Guo Da (Jason) Statham, because of the poison, to keep their adrenaline at a very high level. Another example is the police in "RoboCop", because of technology, out of thin air to get a cool steel armor. In addition, the Marvel Universe among the Iron Man, Batman and many other heroes, but also because of various reasons, the body has gained extraordinary ability. When the body has a certain ability, how to accept it, it becomes a problem. There is a process by which people go about accepting their superpowers. Generally speaking, this process is divided into three stages. They will first doubt, for example, in "Spider-Man", the hero after being bitten by a spider and gaining superpowers, the first thing he did was to go to the rooftop to try out his spider silk. Then there is acceptance, such as in 1978, when Christopher Reeve made "Superman", after the farmer's son Carl found out he was Superman, he ran happily above the field and then overtook a train. Finally, it is application, for example, in the movie to be discussed today - "Upgrade", after the main character Gray discovers that the intelligent brain can not only restore his body, but also enhance his ability in certain aspects, his first thought is to take revenge for his dead wife. After Carl discovers that he is Superman, he runs happily through a field and then overtakes a train
After a person accepts his ability, the next question is how to get along with this ability. This question is like man and money, power and these external temptations, it is a process full of dialectic. Is the person to use the ability, or the ability to enslave people?
After having superpowers, those dark thoughts inside that were impossible to achieve, have a chance to be realized. Man is a complex creature, it is complex in that there is a Pandora's Box deep inside each person, it is a lurking subconscious ego, a self full of animal nature.
In order to limit the power of this instinct, there are laws, police, prisons. The use of various punishments to lock this instinct firmly in the subconscious, so that no one dare to cross the threshold. But when there are superpowers, this restraint from society will become weak. Just like Wolverine, he can easily just use a pair of steel claws to dry a helicopter.
When the constraints of society fail, the only thing that supermen rely on is self-restraint. After having superpowers, they usually choose two paths, one is the path of the comic book heroes, well-controlled and use the ability to save the world and be a hero. The other path is to be enslaved by the ability, like in the Marvel universe, corrupted by the alien host of Venom, or like the protagonist of this film, in revenge for his wife, controlled by the intelligent brain, gradually fall into its plot. The protagonist of this film, in the revenge for his wife, was controlled by the intelligent brain, gradually fell into its conspiracy
This movie discusses the theme of how to get along with the body that they have superpowers. This is by no means an empty talk like Wei Jin's famous scholar, but it has an extremely strong practical meaning, because the 21st century is a biological century.
In 2012, the first gene therapy drug Glybera was approved for marketing in the European Union
in 2016, a medical team used gene therapy to inject Eliza O'Neill, a young American girl, with a harmless virus called AVV, thereby controlling the symptoms of a rare genetic disease she has, Schaeferlippo syndrome type IIIA
In 2017, Patrick Paumen, a Dutch hacker who came to the China Internet Security Conference, sparked attention by having fourteen chips implanted in his body, using which he could interact with various electronic devices such as access control systems and smartphones.
Gene therapy, biohacking, these biology-based technologies are increasingly coming into our view. It is foreseeable that in the future, it is likely to produce the super technology that can transform the human body, like the "Upgrade" movie, which describes the implantation of firearms in the arms and the extraction of visual information from the pupils. But when these super technologies really appear and implanted into the human body, humans are really ready to get along with their own super-powered body? This is also the question raised by the film.
Of course, in addition to telling a story of how to get along with the body, the film, in terms of the details of the future, is also very fine. For example, voice control, virtual reality, the gap between rich and poor, the anti-technology party ...... The director did not focus the camera specifically on these things, they were all flashes, but it is through this slapdash embellishment of details that it presents us with a comprehensive, believable and stable future, and this is where the film excels.