When Trace is stuck for options, he calls on Stem for assistance, which tells him where to go and what to do, in much the same way that Colonel Campbell might remind Snake (and the player) of his current objective or an enemy’s weak points. In Whannell’s story, Stem is similarly routed right into Trace’s brain. The Codec’s receiver functions by manipulating the small bones of the ear so that only the user can hear its transmissions. In 1998’s Metal Gear Solid, the radio-based system allows player-character Solid Snake to contact a number of specialists, all of whom offer counselling based on their areas of expertise. Perhaps the most appropriate example, though, is Metal Gear Solid’s Codec system, which serves not as a sidekick but as a gateway to many. Think Navi, the interminably irritating fairy that follows player-character Link around while highlighting points of interest in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and the Ghosts of Destiny, smarmy floating cuboids that shadow the game’s Guardians and inform players of incoming threats. It’s a trick used to pass instruction and exposition to the player without breaking their immersion. In many video games, the player-character is accompanied by a companion, sometimes unseen, whose job it is to give similar guidance in the field of duty. Wired directly to Trace’s brain, Stem is an artificial intelligence that provides the protagonist not only with physical assistance but with information. It’s here, in the relationship between Stem and Trace, that the Blumhouse-produced picture makes use of a clever information-relay device long common in video games. There’s one small detail that Eron neglected to mention when he fixed his fancy little widget to Trace’s spinal column though: it can talk.
Three months later, tech tycoon Eron persuades Trace to accept a computer-chip implant known as Stem, which will help the quadriplegic get back on his feet – and claim his vengeance. When the couple’s autonomous car mysteriously malfunctions and they’re ambushed by hoodlums, Asha is killed and Trace left paralyzed. Not that that matters she’s dead within the first 15 minutes. His wife Asha is more sensitive to such advancements. The 2018 cyberpunk body horror casts Logan Marshall-Green as gruff technophobe Grey Trace, who cares more for outmoded muscle cars than he does self-driving vehicles, virtual assistants and anything approaching the movie’s version of contemporary tech-led living.
Pore over its pulpy sci-fi plot and look closely at its curiously familiar cinematography, and you’ll find that the flick owes as much to the likes of Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 4 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution as it does RoboCop, Death Wish and The Matrix.
#Iris action game over scenes upgrade#
It may be an original film from writer-director Leigh Whannell but it’s Upgrade that best embodies the feel and aesthetics of contemporary video games. With its canny inclusion of video game devices and aesthetics, film-makers could learn a lot from Upgrade. To find cinema’s most authentic video game movie, we must turn to something that isn’t based on an existing video game property at all.
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