Incarcerated in the mysterious Spiderhead facility – an isolated prison without cells or violence where inmates are subjected to medical experiments – Jeff (Miles Teller) undergoes increasingly strange experiences at the hands of the charismatic but creepy doctor Steve Abnesti (Chris Hemsworth) which push him to his limits.
Starring: Miles Teller, Chris Hemsworth, Jurnee Smollett, Tess Haubrich & Mark Paguio
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Having helmed the blockbuster of the year so far in Top Gun: Maverick, Joseph Kosinski’s new thriller Spiderhead looked like a thrilling shift in momentum; a creepy slow burn about convicts subjected to increasingly strange experiments starring returning Maverick star Miles Teller and a gleefully insane Chris Hemsworth. The actual result is far less impressive, but is held together through the sheer force of will of the leads and a tone that doesn’t quite work but is always so bizarrely off-kilter that you can’t help but keep watching, even if the story loses all steam long before its two hour runtime comes to an end.
The problem comes in the pacing. What starts as an intriguing mystery about the Spiderhead facility and the potentially nefarious experiments devolves to tedium by the halfway mark, as Kosinski relies heavily on sequences of experiments which don’t bring enough variety to warrant returning to the well so often. Only one of these scenes truly excites – an increasingly hard to watch look at a woman completely surrendering control over her body as substances drive her insane.
The central premise driving the film – testing new chemical compounds promoting artificial love, a thirst for violence, or unimpeachable obedience – is rife with potential, but the sequences between these experiment scenes move the plot forward in such a negligible way that when things suddenly pick up in the last half hour, it feels needlessly rushed. A little less of Jeff’s boring backstory and a scattering more mystery and Spiderhead might have been a much better time.
Part black comedy, part sinister asylum break film, Spiderhead struggles to balance the pairing, ultimately doing neither considerably well. The humour isn’t particularly biting or subtle in its approach to oppression, but strikes a perhaps unintentional goldmine in Hemsworth’s completely unhinged performance. Where Teller acts as the audience surrogate, playing Jeff fairly straight-laced and devoid of personality, Hemsworth is the total opposite, relishing the chance to go full villain and chew the scenery as the 80’s music blasting, cheap pleasantry spewing sociopathic scientist. There isn’t much to the character underneath all this surface level sheen but Hemsworth is so committed that it is hard not to get swept up in the fun of the role. At a certain point you stop caring about Jeff’s predicament and just look forward to the next bout of Hemsworth weirdness.
Where Kosinski seems to have devoted most of his time (and budget) is in the antiseptic aesthetic of the actual Spiderhead facility – think a mad scientist’s dream James Bond villain lair. It’s a labyrinthine series of passages and cold, lifeless concrete that surrounds the prisoners of the island, and although they receive comforts in the form of personal rooms, video games and delicious meals, the presence of imminent danger always lurks; that Abnesti’s sinister plan could suddenly reveal itself and swallow everything up in an instant.
It all makes for a frustrating watch. Spiderhead nails the technical aspects of its production and Hemsworth is swinging for the fences with his wild performance but the connective narrative tissue just isn’t there. Teller is a bland protagonist – his story uncompelling – and the mystery of the prison’s activity unravels itself into a rote, lifeless reveal and generic final act fisticuffs. A perfectly serviceable film if you’re looking to kill a few hours, but Spiderhead unravels far quicker than it should.