Does it work? Not really, but due to Kosinski’s skills behind the camera and Hemsworth’s smarmily sweaty paranoiac charm in front of it the thriller comes awfully close to being a success.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 24, 2022

While (Teller) and Hemsworth have a lot of screen presence together, there’s only so much you can do without a decent plot or script…

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 24, 2022

It's part comedy, part thriller, part message movie about our pill-popping culture.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 23, 2022

It needs a much steadier execution than this, because tonally the film is all over the place.

| Jun 21, 2022

Joseph Kosinski’s film is indeed a classic cinematic clash between good and evil. But it’s tinged with enough of Saunders’s acerbic intelligence and humor to distinguish it from most summer shlock -- at least until it reaches its uninspired conclusion.

| Jun 21, 2022

The movie’s made up its mind not to cut too deep on the intellectual, as Saunders’s writing often does, so instead it leans into the human element without fully allowing its characters to become human.

| Jun 21, 2022

The sci-fi thriller watches more like a lesser episode of Black Mirror.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 18, 2022

Soon... it becomes obvious that this film won’t have the courage of Saunders’ story.

| Jun 18, 2022

[It] has idiocy in its veins.

| Jun 18, 2022

Sadly, the performance—and movie—fall flat.

| Jun 18, 2022

... Has some neat Covid-era themes but is ultimately all premise and no payoff.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 17, 2022

This is one of those movies that's forgotten almost as soon as it ends, and it doesn't even require any chemical intervention in order to erase the memory.

| Jun 17, 2022

Though it starts with promise, Spiderhead is pseudo-heady sci-fi stuff that treats its most intriguing elements like an afterthought.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 17, 2022

Hemsworth hams it up with reckless abandon — every take used seems to be the "now do one just for fun" take — but the movie never finds its grounding, or decides which type of mood it's trying to dial into.

| Original Score: C | Jun 17, 2022

Even at 100 minutes minus end credits, the film’s stretch marks are undeniable.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 17, 2022

Even with the addition of action scenes and more sinister underpinnings, the main attraction of the film remains the short story’s personal drama, enhanced onscreen with linings of dread and executed with wit and some good acting.

| Jun 16, 2022

This is a common theme in science fiction, but on film it’s rarely been presented as entertainingly and thoughtfully as it is in Spiderhead.

| Jun 16, 2022

The two sides of the film end up mutually exclusive. An ill-judged experiment itself, the movie intrigues then implodes. And then it just dissolves from memory.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 16, 2022

Kosinski can’t make the inane philosophizing about free will sound profound or new, and the hectic, hasty finale, lacking the nerve or chilly interiority of the original story, plays like something that blew up in the lab.

| Jun 16, 2022

Kosinski never manages full control of the film’s tone, which is essential in a story like this. Saunders’ story is draining but cathartic. “Spiderhead” never reaches that level.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 16, 2022