REVIEW: SPIDERHEAD

3.5/5

SpiderThor. 

107 Mins. Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller & Jurnee Smollett. Director: Joseph Kosinski. 

'Spiderhead'. Spiderhead. Gives you anything the FDA won't approve. The clinically cold trials of Netflix's new movie concerning love and other drugs of thunder, reunites blockbuster of the Summer, 'Top Gun: Maverick' director Joseph Kosinski with the Rooster of wingman Miles Teller. Just weeks after they made 36 year history with the sequel to Tom Cruise's first Hollywood flight to the superstar stratosphere. Although in COVID-19 real-world reality, it feels like its almost been as long as over three and a half decades. A fortnight before Hemsworth will have more hammer time with the hotly anticipated, 'Thor: Love and Thunder' and his former Avenging co-star Chris Evans will star in Netflix's own biggest blockbuster of the year in The Russo Brothers directed 'The Gray Man' with Ryan Gosling and one moustache even Superman couldn't outrun. So that's Odinson, Richard Reeds' Mr. Fantastic in another universe of this one stretching with madness and a 'Birds Of Prey' ('And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn') Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett) for your cape fix, down this coal mine of human trials. All for an unsettling, yet compelling science-fiction thriller based on George Saunders' short sci-fi story 'Escape From Spiderhead' published in The New Yorker in 2010. With reflections of 'Black Mirror' and the remote paradise prison of modern cult classic 'Ex Machina'. Complete with some Hemsworth moves that rival the dancing of Oscar Isaac (it's hilarious that fans on social media have been wishing him a Happy Father's Day...and they're not his kids. Who's the daddy?). All to the timeless tune of Roxy Music's 'More Than This' like some Bill Murray 'Lost In Translation' karaoke. 

Australian postcard perfection is the hallmark to this Hemsworth produced picture. Dystopian nightmares dressed as dreams. Loneliness can be treated with medicine. Love can be prescribed like penicillin. And you'll have such a great f#####g time doing it...no matter who's sitting across from you. Unless you share a room with a stapler that is. And when you watch the reason to that why, everything will come together like two pieces of paper. You'll laugh yourself silly at dad jokes and feel indifference towards the insanity of complex cruelties without the bat of an eye. You'll even begin to numb that personal pain that blunts your brain. Goaded by guilt. And as you do this you'll see a palm tree like view so beautiful outside this Stark-like mansion for Iron Man, forget Thor. Feel the jones for this state-of-the-art facility that peddles researched chemicals with electronic music names like a G6? Or something even more sinister scratched in to with no sign of needing to find a vein. It's all in your back like a battery pack, ready for you to be turned on. But to do this time, you have to do a crime. As the worst-of-the-worst have the best-of-the-best. All in the name of science and a social experiment with the psychological shock shades of Milgram, plugged in. This is the best penitentiary since Leonardo DiCaprio's 'Wolf Of Wall Street' got to ace his tennis love after getting served for back-handing all those who trusted him with their money they loved to make. Sympathetic to their sentence and their struggles. This "hospitable" environment, a halfway house between a psych-ward and an asylum, allows test subjects unsupervised roaming, their own room and sometimes cellphone service. All they have to do is a few chores, oh yeah...and sometimes screw each other. Over and literally. These "volunteers" have an open door policy. But you know the cliché of, "you can leave anytime you want" is too good to be true. Missing the mark like mixed and muddled messages muddying the tropical waters. Following the reviews of critics and confused participants signing up like the streaming service that acknowledges it. 

Bifocal'd with cruel charm between his Netflix 'Extraction' and the wrapped said sequel, coming soon. The hot Hemsworth is as clinically cold as the base of his operations. But steely in his demeanour behind the glass. Suited in a smugness that wants to sheep's clothing itself as best bud, bro sincerity. There's touching moments that press upon the idea that our lead villain here is just deluded by his own grandeur and the God complex that comes with striking discovery oil on a new strain of medicine like this. But really it's all just dressed up, like how he comes to work every day in the comfort of this multimillion dollar home he calls his own. Still Hemsworth navigates this with the humor he imbues his mighty Thor character, always reaching out in the hope that more heart will hammer its way to him in this life. One moment getting high off his own supply with his favourite subject, laughs in the face of the potent pain of our past and our greatest fears. What's scary in satire is that it isn't too far from how we really process things these days, as we filter our forlorn states and bury it all in a feed that hungers for likes when we should all be sharing the love. The negative cycle turning us against each other and the greater selves we've always held inside, but now deny, both within and in what we give out to the whole world for a greater good. Slave to a long black rectangle staring at us like a science fiction monolith. But matching Chris, wit for wit and star power for scene stealing is man of the month Miles Teller. After surviving Oscar 'Whiplash', this young star looked like the next generational great leading man. 2016's 'War Dogs' with Jonah Hill, the brilliant boxing biopic 'Bleed For This' in the same year and not only being once cast in Marvel's first family, but an aerial assault of a sequel almost 40 years in the making confirmed this. But after a 'Fantastic' flop (it wasn't that bad. And he would be our pick in this Multiverse if...well...you know), an Esquire hatchet piece and the holstering of 'Top Gun' stuck on the corona delayed runway, stopped this Maverick in his tracks. But none of this matters now as this Rooseter is waking everyone back up to their Corn Flakes. He even has the last word here with powerful poignancy. Let it sit with you over the pink neon credits. But I think he stole my shaving foam Santa beard idea (ho, ho, ho. I'm just kidding. But this is hilarious). Asking Jurnee Smollett if she's been a good girl this year, as the high flying 'Birds Of Prey' star (she's about to have her own movie after reprising in 'Batgirl' too) gets her talons into this as the clutching hope and heart of a movie fighting cynicism on all fronts. Audiences may have seen this before and critics may say you don't need to again, but this Kosinski movie still has something to say. In a big way, today. Not for tomorrow's world, but the one we've been living in for years. Blissfully unaware as we scroll and others troll. I'll always trust the 'Tron: Legacy', 'Oblivion' and 'Only The Brave' director. Even if the concoction seems a little diluted like most Netflix big name big blockbusters, a victim to today's apathetic cinema crowd staying at home (with good reason) and the streaming service's rotating system (they'll forget this next week for 'The Umbrella Academy'). Remember 'Velvet Buzzsaw'? Well, this thrilling exposé of human horror cuts a little deeper too, as 'Spiderhead' gets in your brain and keeps you in its web. Acknowledge. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Further Filming: 'Black Mirror', 'Ex Machina', 'Velvet Buzzsaw'.