Chris Hemsworth can hide so much behind a smile. Best known for his brawny role as Thor in the MCU, Hemsworth has quietly built himself a multifaceted, character-driven niche playing morally ambiguous manipulators initially mistaken as harmless buffoons. From playing Formula One racer and playboy James Hunt in Ron Howard’s “Rush” to portraying a cult leader in Drew Goddard’s “Bad Times at the El Royale,” he works wonders, both comedically and dramatically, with this unsuspecting persona.
It’s what makes Joseph Kosinski’s “Spiderhead,” a perfectly fine, popcorn-filled sci-fi thriller concerning prison abolitionism, so delightful. While few directors are enjoying as much success as Kosinski with “Top Gun: Maverick” (his forest firefighter drama “Only The Brave” is also incredible), Hemsworth, in particular, is totally in his groove as this film’s villain. He is Steve Abnesti, the head researcher at Spiderhead Penitentiary and Research Center. We’re first introduced to him in a scene inspired by “Get Out,” wherein an inmate sits in a yellow chair within a glass enclosure. Steve gives the inmate a medication code-named G-46, causing the prisoner to laugh uncontrollably. A self-serving smirk, one where innocent pride or evil joy overtaking resides between the lips, creeps across Steve’s face.
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In its thought-provoking concept of inmates as guinea pigs, “Spiderhead” most resembles George Lucas’ “THX 1138” and Claire Denis’ “High Life.” Jeff (Miles Teller) is one of those prisoners. Similar to the others at the facility, Steve procured him for a drug trial by promising him no bars or cells, free range of movement in the facility, good food, an open-door policy, and mutual respect between the jailer and the jailed. In return, Jeff wears a metal pack filled with cartridges containing several individual medications — some promising hallucinations, others offering unmitigated terror — attached to his spine. From Steve’s phone, he can increase the doses, but he won’t do so unless Jeff gives him permission. It’s a situation that gives the illusion of free will but only promises a different cage.
Through the narrative’s collection of inmates, “Spiderhead” wants to interrogate how regret can crush a person to the point of self-destruction. Unfortunately, the movie moves with only lightweight precision. Jeff, for instance, accidentally murdered his best friend by driving drunk and crashing his jaguar. Both Heather (Tess Haubrich) and Jeff’s crush, Lizzy (Jurnee Smollett), are so ashamed of their respective crimes they dare not say them. That regret causes Heather and Jeff to continually agree to take N-40, a drug that causes uncontrollable sexual desire, as a way of atoning for their respective pasts.
But “Spiderhead” doesn’t fully push this sentiment. Instead, it relies on cheap flashbacks (one scene features terrible VFX fire) and relies on actors like Smollett to fill the inner gaps in their tattered characters. The script doesn’t push the systematic inequities of the prison industrial complex either, mostly because the people like Jeff and Lizzy are depicted as people who merely made mistakes when a better commentary on society’s addiction to incarceration would probably arise if the protagonist were truly reprehensible.
“Spiderhead” follows a long line of Netflix releases where the budget (in this case $100 million) appears on screen in the form of the pop culture names added to the cast. Kosinski, however, can at least be commended for allowing us to hear the money, too, by listening to the movie’s 1980s-infused jukebox soundtrack, featuring Supertramp, The Staple Singers, Roxy Music, and more. Each needle drop is fun, even when they’re a tad too on the nose like Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science.”
Still, you never forget the way these songs and these stars are the expensive wallpaper meant to cover this thriller’s thin walls. The minimalist, sterile set, colored by orange and beige hues, lacks specificity. And sure, Kosinski wants to harken to 1970s sci-fi flicks like “THX 1138” or even “Logan’s Run,” but the look appears shoddy rather than futuristic. Even the intended visual hallucinations from the drugs aren’t done justice. Apart from one causing the afflicted to see sunshine and flowers through a gauzy filter, the intensity of each medication relies solely on the acting. You’d expect far more visual trickery, here, especially with this budget, but it never arrives.
The same might be said of Teller. The pain and self-loathing Jeff feels requires Teller to allow his interiority to flood the surface. Think Robert Pattinson in “High Life.” But Teller falls woefully short of fully projecting the internal battle waged within Jeff. When Steve asks whether he should give Heather or another inmate, Sarah (Angie Milliken) darkenfloxx, a mind-altering substance causing substantially terrible trips, for example, Kosinski opts for a close-up to track Teller’s face. Steve is trying to discover if Jeff still feels the residual effects of N-40, that is, whether he has fallen in love with either woman. We should see a host of emotions swirling within Jeff, but Teller makes a few too many obvious choices, and you never really gain the full psychological thrust of the scene.
Instead, it’s Hemsworth who carries the load. You won’t find many actors this year having as much fun in a role as him. He makes a wily line of dialogue like: “Who took you up in that seaplane one time?” into an at once calculating and hilarious beat. Unlike Teller, Hemsworth knows just how much surface to show, especially in relation to his MCU persona. Similar to Chris Evans, Hemsworth flexes his trusting relationship with the audience to be at once a blithering “best friend” and a post-capitalist heartthrob using the prison industrial complex to his own nefarious ends. And like Channing Tatum, he carries a physical awareness of how to convert his muscular physique into laughs.
That internal dance (and Hemsworth’s actual dancing) keeps us enthralled even when the planned rebelliousness of the film’s ending lacks any real punch. He is gleefully weird in a movie that often isn’t weird enough. So while you will get sturdy popcorn pleasures from “Spiderhead,” you’ll also leave wondering what more possibilities Hemsworth holds as an actor once he lays his hammer down. [B-]
“Spiderhead” arrives on Netflix on June 17.