Fresh off helming the biggest movie of the year (so far, at least) – Top Gun: Maverick – director Joseph Kosinski is back behind the camera for Netflix’s sci-fi thriller Spiderhead. He re-teams with Miles Teller (Rooster in Maverick) and rounds out an all-star cast with Chris Hemsworth and Jurnee Smollett. Unfortunately this one is more of a mixed bag, despite a promising premise and solid performances all around.
Spiderhead follows Steve Absenti (Chris Hemsworth), head of an experimental prison facility – the titular Spiderhead – where inmates volunteer to be test subjects for chemicals that modify both behavior and emotions in exchange for shorter sentences. In addition to the shorter sentences, inmates have relative freedom, as far as prisons go. They get better food, private bedrooms, and even arcade games. But is that a worthy tradeoff for being given drugs that induce intense fears and phobias, feelings of lust so strong you can’t help but have sex with someone you wouldn’t otherwise give a second look? Steve seems to think so, and the whole system hinges on the prisoners buying into it as well.
Most of the story revolves around one prisoner in particular, Jeff, played by Miles Teller. He’s Steve’s “star pupil,” if you will. Steve spends more time with him than the others, even outside of the testing sessions. Steve almost has a need for Jeff’s approval in what Spiderhead is doing. This would have been a relationship worth exploring a little more. There’s no real explanation as to why Steve puts so much focus on Jeff. Sure, you can make a pretty good guess or two as to the reasoning. And I don’t necessarily have a problem with ambiguity. When done well, it can be a really effective touch. But this was a scenario where I would have preferred a more black and white answer.
But Hemsworth and Teller are both near the top of their game’s here. Teller isn’t quite matching up to what he did with Whiplash, (though that might be an unfair standard to expect), but he’s still terrific. For Hemsworth though, this could be his best performance, at least from a fully rounded acting standpoint. While he’s fantastic as Thor and in other action roles like Extraction, this was a more difficult role to pull off. And he nails it.
As promising as Spiderhead’s premise is, it doesn’t do a whole lot to surprise you. The ultimate resolution, the twists and turns along the way, they all feel very expected. Eventually, Jeff starts to question the experiments, and begins to wonder if there’s something more sinister lingering beneath the surface. To the movie’s credit, it does a good job of building up the tension and pacing out the various reveals. It’s just that the reveals themselves fall mostly flat.
It’s the characters and their relationships that are Spiderhead’s strength. In addition to Steve and Jeff, another central relationship is that of Jeff and another inmate, Lizzy (Jurnee Smollett). They bond over their shared experiences, but both are hiding their own secrets from each other. Smollett is equally as strong as Hemsworth and Teller, and adds a needed extra layer of depth, even with less screen time than the other two. These three do most of the heavy lifting, managing to keep Spiderhead somewhat above water.
It does have a couple other things going for it, though. The set design might feel a little simple for an advanced tech facility, but it works. It gives off almost a Bond villain’s secret lair vibe, which is an A+ vibe as far as I’m concerned. There’s also a good amount of humor, doing a good job of cutting into the more serious tone of the movie. With the serious and sinister aspects not always succeeding, the dark comedy side of things helps break up the movie, giving it a different, necessary, feel for a little bit.
Ultimately though, the strong performances and few other good parts can’t withstand the weight of an underdeveloped central story. There’s certainly enough to like about it (including its convenience of being on Netflix) that might make it worth a watch. But you won’t be missing too much if you decide to skip this one.
Score: 61/100
