Spiderhead
A prisoner in a state-of-the-art penitentiary begins to question the purpose of the emotion-controlling drugs he's testing for a pharmaceutical genius.
- Released: 2022-06-17
- Runtime: 105 minutes
- Genre: Action, Thrillers
- Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, Jurnee Smollett, Tess Haubrich, BeBe Bettencourt, Angie Miliken, Jane Larkin, Ron Smyck, Joey Vieira, Elke Hinrichsen, Sam Delich, Mark Paguio, Daniel Reader, Ashleigh Lawrence, Stephen Tongun, Rachel Forsyth, Jariah Travan, Regan Sharp, Elliot Chenery, Aykut Karacam, Wyomi Reed, Nathan Jones
- Director: Joseph Kosinski
Comments
- Chandru2206J - 24 March 2024
Could have been better
The plot of a pharmaceutical company testing its new experiment on prisoners sounded great, but the movie failed to deliver. Despite the actors' excellent performance, especially Chris Hemsworth's role outside of action movies, the film lacked conflict and failed to build tension between the prisoners and the company.
The security measures in the facility were inadequate, as evidenced by the two prisoners' effortless escape. The villain was not menacing in the slightest and was easily overpowered by the hero. The climax of the movie was underwhelming, lacking any real obstacles for the hero to overcome.
The characters were poorly designed, with no depth or development. While the movie was not boring throughout, there were certainly moments where it dragged.
Overall, the movie is only worth watching once to pass the time. - macc99 - 12 August 2023
All the right ingredients but a very average result.
The script is based on a terrific George Saunders short story, the dialogue is whip-smart, Chris Hemsworth is excellent as a charismatic and occasionally-charming psycho, the rest of the cast do a fine job and the location is atmospheric and visually-arresting.
Unfortunately the tone is all over the place. For the first two-thirds of the movie this isn't a dealbreaker but as we build to the climax, humour (that seems to have walked off the set of a different movie) is shoe-horned in and turns what should be an intense stand-off into a slapstick farce. There's a very good reason why Hall and Oates have never been the soundtrack to a 'final showdown" and, after this film, they never will be again.
