Upgrade (2018 film)

Category: Sci-fi action/social commentary

Directed by: Leigh Whannel

----

Over the couple of years I have been (un)professionally reviewing movies, I've noticed Upgrade pop up as a suggestion a few times. However, what prevented me giving it 90 minutes of my time is that it is an Australian movie, and yes, I should be supportive of the local industry and of the talents we have both infront of and behind the camera, but fucking hell, I've come across enough shit Australian movies (especially in the early 2000s) to know it can be really hit and miss. Mostly miss.

Though 2026 is as good a time as any to hit play - Australian movies are generally getting better (though not always to a level of financial success) and we have also reached a point in time where Artificial Intelligence is advancing rapidly, particularly in creative outlets - so why not watch a movie about people whose lives have been taken over by rapidly-advanced technology!

The plot:

Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) spends his days restoring old muscle cars while his wife Asha (Melanie Vallejo) works a corporate job at bio-augmentation company COBALT (which could easily be seen as a take on Elon Musk's Neuralink).

The Dry 2: Force Of Nature (2021 film)

Category: Australian murder mystery, book-to-movie adaptation

Directed by: Robert Connolly

-----

Eric Bana returns in the sequel to one of the few Australian movies in recent memory to actually get and live up to the hype. The Dry 2: Force Of Nature is the long-awaited sequel to the modern classic The Dry, though there is a certain irony in having a movie titled The Dry set in a wet and damp forest…

This movie is based off the Jane Harper book Force Of Nature, the second in the Aaron Falk trilogy, and chances are we will probably get Exiles somewhere down the line. Not that I've read any Jane Harper books, but I will say it looks like she knows how to put a story together!

Is the movie itself any good? Will fans of the first love the second? Find out after the plot recap, bearing in mind that this movie involves a lot of flashbacks (much like the first), so I'll do my best to present a coherent linear description.

The plot:

The movie begins with four women emerging out from a damp and dark forest, flagging down a car to seek medical attention for one of the women who has been bitten by a spider.