Spiderhead

"Top Gun: Maverick" director, co-star re-team for Netflix's dryly funny psychological thriller ... and Thor tags along.

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“Spiderhead” (now streaming on Netflix) is the third collaboration between director Joseph Kosinski and actor Miles Teller with the others being 2017’s firefighter drama “Only the Brave” and this summer’s BIG sequel that could “Top Gun: Maverick.” If these movies are indicative of the quality this artistic union will produce, here’s hoping they make at least three more together. (Joe, buddy, find a way to fit Teller into your Brad Pitt Formula 1 flick. Please!)

The film’s title refers to a remote research facility where prisoners are given experimental, mood-altering drugs by scientists Steve Abnesti (Chris Hemsworth) and Mark Verlaine (Mark Paguio). The inmates include Jeff (Teller, rocking a mini-mullet), Lizzy (Jurnee Smollett), Heather (Tess Haubrich), Rogan (former WWE wrestler Nathan Jones), Sarah (Angie Milliken) and Knowles (fellow “Top Gun: Maverick” alum Charles Parnell).

The prisoners have volunteered to take part in these experiments as their living conditions are superficially far superior to those seen in a state prison. Abnesti provides them with private quarters, charcuterie, arcade games and “Free Fridays” wherein prisoners can take seaplane or speedboat rides. The inmates are allowed to roam the facility freely and Abnesti proudly operates under an open door policy.

The prisoners are prescribed an array of different drugs – Laffodil gets ‘em giggling (even at graphic descriptions of genocide), Verbaluce increases communication skills, Darkenfloxx digs up one’s deepest, darkest anxieties and insecurities and Luvactin prompts prisoners to copulate with one another regardless of physical attraction or emotional attachment. As is wont to happen when mad scientists wantonly meddle with peoples’ body chemistries, things go awry.