Theseus’ ship was old, battered, broken down. Having been so degraded from seafaring for years on end, he gradually started replacing parts of his precious boat. Over time, he had adjusted so much that not a single part was the same as it had been in the original vessel. This has led to a metaphysical paradox, a question which has inspired different answers from centuries of the world’s greatest thinkers — namely, is this still the same ship?

However, perhaps Plutarch never anticipated the same question being directed towards man: what is it that makes us human? What inviolable aspect and unassailable component is it that renders us as who (or what) we are? And what happens if the part of us we consider inseparable is in fact separated?

That is the question that Upgrade (2018) seems to ponder. In the year 2046, Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) and his wife Asha (Melanie Vallejo) are on their way home when their car — a self-driving vehicle — crashes in a dangerous neighbourhood. When Asha is killed and Grey paralysed by street thugs, he is offered a chance to regain control of his body through a biomechanical implant in his brain, capable of sending the electronic signals to his muscles that his brain no longer can. But he soon discovers that this microchip in his brain allows him to do so much more…

Upgrade is not a perfect film, but it’s definitely an unsung science-fiction thriller. It creates exhilarating action sequences, a serviceable plot (which is occasionally predictable, though not entirely), but most importantly, Upgrade provides a keen insight into the way our reliance on technology has an insidious way of becoming completely pervasive.

Besides the question of addiction to screens or the colourful stimulation of an iPhone, this unnerving spread of technology forces us to ask: what are humans without the machines they…