Posted yesterday at 12:00 p.m.
the New Yorker published in 2010 Escape From Spiderhead, a short story by George Saunders about the sometimes amoral desire of human nature to repair the wounds of their fellow man. A fascinating and disturbing text that has been artificially inflated for its passage to the cinema. In the hands of screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (the authors of the diptychs on Dead Pool and zombieland), this makes for a particularly generic dystopian narrative.
The feature film however begins with a bang. A researcher (Chris Hemsworth) multiplies the tests on his subjects, being especially interested in the effects of his experiments on a tormented prisoner (Miles Teller). The first half hour, most promising, shows the consequences of this drug capable of calming or tormenting the body and the mind, even making it possible to fall in love.
This control of feelings and behavior is exercised with a good dose of black humor and even satire. A whiff of freshness which however does not take long to dry up when more dramatic and psychological intentions are felt, however superficial they may be.
This ends up having an impact on the actors, who seem to star in completely different movies. As a mad scientist who takes himself for God, Chris Hemsworth offers a delirious performance, reminiscent of those of Vincent Price of the good old days. A tongue-in-cheek interpretation that contrasts with that, much more rigid and monolithic, of Miles Teller, who never seems to believe in what is happening to him.
Often able to sublimate his ordinary subjects thanks to achievements that are off the beaten track, the filmmaker Joseph Kosinski hits his Waterloo here. He cannot count, as in his previous and impressive Top Gun: Maverick, oblivion and Tron: Legacy, featuring spectacular action scenes and elaborate special effects. Rid of all artifice, he must fall back on the intimate, which has never been his cup of tea. Even the finale, more animated, disappoints by its artistic proposals which leave something to be desired.
Maybe you should look Spiderhead in a daze to take some pleasure in it. Again, nothing is less certain.
On Netflix
science fiction
Spiderhead
Joseph Kosinsky
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, Jurnee Smollett
1:47 a.m.