Spiderhead movie review: Chris Hemsworth’s new Netflix film is like a discarded Black Mirror episode

Spiderhead is a slick, self-contained science-fiction thriller modelled after Seventies dystopian motion pictures like Logan’s Run, however would possibly remind youthful audiences of Michael Bay’s The Island. Like Tom Cruise in Maverick, Chris Hemsworth performs the pseudo-protagonist, whereas Miles Teller will get the extra compelling arc. The all the time electrical younger actor stars as an inmate named Jeff, imprisoned at a top-secret facility overseen by Hemsworth’s character, Steve.

On the floor, the Spiderhead facility appears like a kind of Nordic prisons the place even mass shooters dwell in minimal safety bungalows overlooking fjords. And definitely, the manipulative Steve by no means misses a possibility to remind the inmates of the stress-free lives that they’re being allowed to dwell, regardless of having dedicated grave crimes. Jeff, as an example, was concerned in a drunk driving accident that killed his buddy—a plot level that mirrors one thing that basically occurred to Teller, leaving him with emotional wounds that he often talks about in interviews, and facial scars that can now even be part of any character that he ever performs.

After all, there’s a catch to why the inmates at Spiderhead are left comparatively unchecked. The jail, we’re quickly instructed, is floor zero for some very sinister experiments. And the guilt-ridden Jeff is a perfect guinea pig for Steve, who doesn’t want to use a lot strain on him to get him to take part in his more and more unethical human trials.

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Steve has manufactured quite a lot of medication that, as soon as administered on a human being, could make them emotionally pliable. One drug impacts their libido, and one other their temper. There’s even a drug that makes folks extra articulate. However Steve’s precedence is to excellent one thing extra significant: a drug that may mimic the sensation of being in love.

Spiderhead is a minor Kosinski movie, but it surely’s a terrific exhibit for his signatures as a filmmaker, just like the modernist structure that he’s all the time been fascinated by, the digital cinematography by Claudio Miranda, and Joseph Trapanese’s digital rating. These are all superficial observations, although. At their core, almost all of Kosinski’s movies cope with loneliness. However whereas the characters in Tron Legacy, Oblivion and Maverick embodied a extra literal solitude, Spiderhead is the the primary time that Kosinski is actively addressing these anxieties through plot. Steve is a mad scientist, however in a manner, he’s quite a bit like Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn from Tron Legacy, and even Cruise’s Maverick from Prime Gun 2—characters who’re so dedicated to their missions that they’ve sacrificed almost each private relationship that they’ve ever had.

What’s cool about Spiderhead—and we’ll get to the issues in a bit—is that it isn’t set within the distant future, which makes a few of its concepts appear extra pressing. Steve, as an example, makes use of iPhones to regulate the dosage of the medication that he injects into the inmates’ bloodstreams. And each autos that may join the remoted facility to the mainland—a aircraft and a ship—are positively classic, as is the movie’s old-school rock soundtrack.

However for all its thematic grandiosity—Steve’s final masterplan, with out giving it away, will doubtless attraction to the Vijay Deverakonda sorts—Spiderhead by no means absolutely comes collectively. As a personality, Steve is simply too thinly drawn, and the movie’s dedication to venture him because the protagonist of the story is a pointless distraction that will get in the way in which of you forming a bond with Jeff. And the tone is far and wide. Spiderhead can’t resolve whether or not it desires to be a paranoid thriller or a darkly comedic satire of our occasions. Hemsworth’s efficiency, nevertheless, is fairly satisfying. He performs Steve like a massively entitled tech bro with a God complicated.

However in an encouraging signal of artistic evolution, that is the second Kosinski movie in a row the place the emotional via line is stronger than his shiny visuals. Jeff’s redemption arc is genuinely transferring, though—and that is emblematic of the movie—it could’ve been much more arresting had his crimes been extra morally complicated. However Spiderhead is pleased to wave at grand concepts from a distance, with out ever moving into for a handshake.

Spiderhead
Director – Joseph Kosinski
Forged – Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, Jurnee Smollett
Score – 3/5