We could stand to have more sci-fi movies built like Alex Garland's “Ex Machina.” Not that they should be about the same subject, but there’s a fruitful appeal in watching a limited cast tinker with variables on the human experience, all in a strange futuristic setting. “Spiderhead,” the latest film from Joseph Kosinski after last month’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” agrees with me, because with its many similarities it even has its mad scientist—played by a winking Chris Hemsworth—grooving to pop music. But the individual significance of "Spiderhead" is a larger issue, and it's ultimately not nearly as clever or eye-opening as it dreams of being.
“Spiderhead” imagines a different kind of prison system—one with an open-door policy that allows the incarcerated to have their sense of self, to cook for themselves, to work out when they want to. What they sacrifice as punishment is their brain chemistry for science, which is toyed with by Steve Abnesti (Chris Hemsworth), following the orders of a protocol committee hoping to cure the world's problems through dosages. The prisoner has the free will to take an experimental dosage—approved by saying “Acknowledge”—and can be faced with the self-loathing of “Darkenfloxx,” or the immense need to laugh from “Laffodil.” If Abnesti needs them to articulate what they're thinking, he raises the dosage (via a smartphone app) on "Verbaluce." These are strange names (from the George Saunders short story Escape from Spiderhead, a first-person account that thrives on casually throwing these words around), and it's sure strange to see Hemsworth play this guy.
One good side effect from "Spiderhead" is that the performances can have their own potency, but not when they're given a certain dosage. Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollett, two of the main prisoners, give surefooted performances as Jeff and Lizzie, respectively. The prison has allotted them a chance at self-forgiveness, as both are here due to horrific instances of manslaughter. It's funny, but revealing how the movie's dosage scenes, these simulations they bring to life by screaming, writhing on the couch, and sometimes feigning suicide, leave you cold. The literal act of Abnesti turning them different ways becomes almost a conceit of a movie that itself is forcing its power, its vague reason to exist.