The Twilight Zone (2019) -- Season 1 Episode 10 (Blurryman)

There’s a certain dilemma with reboots and remakes.  If you stick too close to the original, there’s no real point.  You’re not adding anything.  If you try to make it different, you risk straying too far from the original vision.  It becomes a remake in name only.  It’s difficult to find a balance where you’re truly continuing the legacy.

I suspect the new incarnation of The Twilight Zone has been trying to find its footing.  At least one is a remake of an original episode and seems to face that dilemma.  Overall, though, it would seem that some of the episodes are really trying to pay homage to Rod Serling’s vision.

Blurryman is sort of a metafictional take on an episode.  It starts off looking like a regular episode, but it’s not.  Midway through the opening narration, Jordan Peele seems to break character and we realize the episode is about making a Twilight Zone episode.

At the center of this is Sophie Gelson, the false episode’s writer.  Jordan Peele complains that her opening narration isn’t good enough.  So, there’s a rewrite and some cue cards that don’t hold what she actually wrote.

Plus, some footage shows a blurry man that no one noticed.  Each episode seems to have at least once.  (The footage shown is from The Comedian.  I checked and there is actually a person there, although not as blurry.)  The cue cards are written off as a prank.  The footage really isn’t anyone’s fault.  There are several people that should have noticed and the script writer isn’t really one of them.

Blurryman lays on the fright as Sophie descends into horror that occasionally showed up in the classic series.  She finds herself on an empty lot, being chased by Blurryman.  When she finds other people, no one notices her, nor does anyone react to her pursuer.

The ending could be taken one of two ways.  It could be seen as somewhat cheesy and a blatant attempt to appeal to fans of the original series.  Instead, I’d like to think that it’s a great way to acknowledge the original series and maybe try to bring us back to that.  (Maybe the episode’s ending is a little corny, but I like it.)

I can forgive a lot during a show’s first season.  I realize that this is basically a new production.  While it would appear to have influences from earlier incarnations, there will be missteps.  Maybe the self-referential nature doesn’t work all the time here, but I do get the sense that they’re trying.

As Sophie points out, why does it have to be art or entertainment?  Likewise, why does it have to be true to the original series or something new?  It’s difficult enough to find a balance.  It’s even more difficult to find something everyone will like.  Sophie wondered what The Twilight Zone was as a child.  Was it a literal place or was it a part of our imagination?  I think a lot of us have wondered the same thing from time to time.

IMDb page

Upgrade (2018)

Details matter.

I came out of Upgrade feeling like something was missing.  It was a decent movie, but it wasn’t great.  It wasn’t until later that I realized the story didn’t have many unnecessary details.  Everything seemed to move the story along.

The movie begins with Grey Trace fixing a classic car for a man named Eron Keen.  His wife, Asha, is coming home in a futuristic, self-driving car.  He tends towards the past whereas she tends towards the future.  Either way, he needs her to follow him so he can drop off the car.  He’ll need a ride back, after all.

On that ride back, they get into an accident.  The car’s AI malfunctions and takes them to a bad part of town, where it finally accelerates and has an accident.  Both survive the crash, but Asha is killed by a gang and Grey is left paralyzed.

Mr. Keen pays Grey a visit in the hospital.  Eron may be able to use a chip called STEM that he’s developed to fix Grey’s spine.  Grey initially refuses.  Without his wife, all he can think about is ending his life.  He reconsiders, only to find that there’s a catch: He can’t tell anyone about the chip.  That means rolling around in a wheelchair to keep up appearances.  He can’t even tell his own mother.

Soon, Grey realizes that there’s another catch.  The chip comes with a voice.  While Grey is researching the accident he was in, STEM speaks up to point out an identifying mark on one of the attackers.  From there, Grey is able to find and exact revenge on the people that killed his wife and put him in a wheelchair.

It’s your basic revenge movie, in the same vein as Death Wish.  The problem is that it’s just that: Basic.  With Death Wish, we get to see the main character’s family.  Here, Grey has a wife, who dies, and a mother, who we get to see very little of.  It’s mostly Grey taking suggestions from STEM.

The act in need of revenge occurs very early in the movie.  We don’t get any flashbacks to Grey and Asha meeting or getting married.  We get the impression that they’re happily married.  However, this is The Grey Trace Show, with his trusty sidekick, STEM.  There isn’t a lot to differentiate this from other revenge movies. The only thing that makes Grey different is that his body is augmented.  He has an advantage over the average bad guy.

I had gone in to the movie hoping to see a lot of the effects shown in the trailer.  I did get that, but even that wasn’t as much as I would have wanted.  There are a few fight scenes, but a lot of the movie is Grey getting deeper into trouble because STEM is there to egg him on and help him fight, if necessary.

This is almost like a rough draft of a great movie.  It had the elements, but it was pared down to the basics.  Maybe we could have had flashbacks to Grey and Asha meeting.  There was none of that.  There’s no real history of who Eron is.  I don’t recall seeing any articles on him.  He’s like a stock tech guy, there only to have the answer.

In fact, I would say that almost all of the characters aren’t even McGuffins.  They’re more like signposts, pointing Grey in the right direction or telling us where Grey is.  The mother is there to take care of him and show us that Grey is in need.  The gang is there to beat the crap out of Grey.  Asha is there to be the motivation for Grey to seek revenge.  STEM is almost like a tour guide, in that respect.  The AI shows Grey things that he normally wouldn’t have found or seen.

As for the ending, I’m not sure where the movie wanted to go.  It serves as a way for the movie to have a complete ending.  It could also set up a second act.  As with Bright, some aspects of Upgrade would make more sense if that were true.  I could see this as part of a larger story arc.  I could also see this being a wasted movie.  I guess I’ll have to see what happens.

IMDb page