Butler's Cinema Scene

“SPIDERHEAD” My rating: C (Netflix)

106 minutes | MPAA rating: R

A promising premise goes nowhere in “Spiderhead,” a si-fy-ish melodrama that at least allows Chris Hemsworth to play something not of the Marvel Universe.

Scripted by George Saunders, Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese (on whose short story it is based), the film unfolds in a futuristic concrete edifice perched on the edge of an island.

Inside it looks like maybe a posh-if-sterile spa melded with a swingers’ resort. There are video games for the residents to play, good food and apparently a hands-off attitude when it comes to romantic connections between the participants.

But we soon discover that this is actually a high-tech prison dedicated to medical experiments. The residents/subjects are inmates from the mainland who have volunteered to be guinea pigs in return for a more relaxed environment: no armed guards, no bars, no locked doors. Moreover, most of the men and women are non-violent offenders.

We learn about the place through Jeff (Miles Teller), who was convicted of vehicular manslaughter. Most of the time he cohabits with Lizzy (Jurnee Smollett), who serves as chef in a well-equipped kitchen.

But periodically Jeff is called to the Spiderhead, a testing center run by Steve Abnesti (Hemsworth), a bespectacled brainiac who is clearly working hard to exude an aura of frat-bro affability. He treats his inmate/subjects like buddies…until it no longer serves his purposes.

Steve is a pharmaceutical wiz who has formulated a wide array of mood-altering drugs. His subjects — all volunteers, remember — never know what they’ll be dosed with when they start a session. It might be potion that makes them laugh uproariously at even the lamest joke. For that matter, under the influence thy will find even human suffering hilarious.

There’s a drug that makes two strangers fall almost instantly and carnally in love…although when the effect has worn off there are no residual feelings of romance or lust.

The worst tests, though, involve Darkenfloss, which plunges the subject into the deepest imaginable depression.

That’s where Jeff has issues. He is expected to collaborate with Steve on who gets Darkenfloss and the dosage to be administered…and he’s deeply disturbed at seeing his fellow human beings in the throes of crippling, even suicidal, downers.

A contest of wills develops between Jeff and Steve…at which point Steve shows his true fascistic colors.

The notion of drugs that can drastically change a person’s mood — almost like a hypnotic suggestion — should be fertile ground for some interesting scenes — everything from comedy to tragedy.

And yet “Spiderhead” — which was directed by Joseph Kosinski of “Top Gun: Maverick” fame — never really takes advantage of the possibilities. In a lot of ways it’s a standard-issue mad-scientist flick.

Let’s give some credit, though, to Hemsworth, who seems to have de-bulked for his role (he never takes his shirt off) and offers a physical vulnerability that is in sharp contrast with his Thor persona. He does a good job of nailing Steve’s malevolent scheming while hiding behind the guise of an apologetic and sympathetic sort.

| Robert W. Butler