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2018 sci-fi action movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Following an accident in which his wife is killed and he becomes paraplegic, Grey Trace (that's actually his name) is talked into having a computer chip implanted into him that will give him control over his limbs again. It also helps him become a gifted puncher.

I haven't seen Leigh Whannell's first movie, chapter three in the Insidious franchise, but this sci-fi action thriller is a solid sophomore effort. If you look at only the subtle near-future visuals and the clever and often simultaneously humorous and graphic action violence, you've got yourself a fun B-movie. The acting and the writing can't keep up unfortunately, but it doesn't take away from the mindless fun. The fight choreography, especially the early sequences where there's still a novelty with a guy who is reluctantly beating the crap out of bad guys, is creatively dazzling. There's a struggling original voice working very hard to emerge from the cliches and weak storytelling, but it is in there somewhere.

Whannell's story might be a commentary on human's dependence on technology, but that is handled as clumsily as the dialogue and storytelling. I do appreciate Whannell's willingness to go completely bleak here.