Along Came a Spider (2001)

Movie Info

I’m a dull killer…and I’ve caught this dull security lady

Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman) has suffered a loss.  His partner was killed on an assignment and now he’s taking some time off.  When the daughter of a senator named Megan Rose (Mika Boorem) is kidnapped from a prestigious school, the kidnapper Gary Soneji (Michael Wincott) reaches out to Cross and brings him onto the case.  Teamed with one of the school’s security guard Jezzie Flannigan (Monica Potter), Alex must find Megan before it is too late…and discovers that the kidnapping might not be as cut and dry as he thought.

Directed by Lee Tamahori, Along Came a Spider is mystery-suspense thriller.  The story adapts the 1993 James Patterson novel and is a follow-up film to 1997’s Kiss the Girls.  The movie was a box-office success but was met with tepid reviews from critics.

I saw Kiss the Girls when it was released, but the story and characters didn’t interest me enough to seek out Along Came a Spider.  When I randomly decided to watch the film, I found it a rather limp thriller.

Anton Yelchin…looking at a computer…like normal

The film is one of those procedural films that is extremely procedural.  In fact, the movie feels pretty small screen.  The film plays out just as you expect it to with a twist two-thirds of the way through that doesn’t feel like much of a twist.  The characters you expect to die meet their fate and the characters expect to live do just that.  It feels like it even ends in a bit of a whimper.

Other than Morgan Freeman, the cast is rather bland.  Monica Potter is a weak (and unbelievable) costar and Michael Wincott just feels like the most generic of serial killers.  I generally like Dylan Baker, Michael Moriarty, and Penelope Ann Miller in roles, but they are all essentially background characters.  The film is one of Anton Yelchin’s early roles and like in Star Trek, his character spends most of the small role looking at his computer screen.

Stay quiet and the movie can end faster

If you substituted the cast with the cast from Law & Order, the film would look about the same.  The style and look of the movie isn’t as solid as Kiss the Girls, and the movie is one step above network TV or a slick TV movie.  If the plot wasn’t bland, the movie needed to look better.

Along Came a Spider is a rather dull thriller.  It has a killer, it has a victim, and it has some shooting…but it needs more.  The plot of the movie needs another hook.  I kept waiting for it to happen, but it never came to fruition.  I didn’t particularly care if the characters got out of the Spider’s web.  Following Along Came a Spider, Alex cross was rebooted with Tyler Perry in Alex Cross in 2012.

Related Links:

Kiss the Girls (1997)