Along Came a Spider
Wretched
Note – I originally wrote this thing about 10 years ago, and it was painful to re-read now. I sound like an idiot in the first two paragraphs. It was the first review to go up on the site, so I was probably trying to sound interesting, but I don’t. Skip to the third paragraph.
I cannot forgive the trailer for this movie. The trailer shows the little kidnapped girl running back to her parents. It continues with a discussion that tells the audience the killer has something bigger in mind. Someone says something to the effect of “oh my god, the president.” Even though I don’t trust trailers, and it annoys me to no end that they give away almost the entire movie, they very rarely are completely misleading. I guess it’s possible the 1,445,220 times I saw this trailer, I was having an out of body experience and misinterpreted it. The trailer seriously wounded the movie for me because I kept waiting for the little girl to go running back to her parents, and at no time did I feel her life was in any sort of danger. After an hour of waiting for the happy reunion, I became perplexed because I was waiting for the rest of the movie to start. The trailer should be burned at the stake, so if you’ve seen it, but not the movie, don’t believe it. The entire movie is about the little girl’s kidnapping.
Aside from my trailer issue, “Along Came a Spider” isn’t good. It starts with a “Cliffhanger” opening, then waddles around waiting for Alex Cross (the always superb Morgan Freeman, who is the only reason to see this thing - I didn’t like Nurse Betty, sorry to say) to figure everything out, which of course he does. I’m not sure what the hell Monica Potter is doing in this. I’d rather Freeman were talking to a broomstick he fancied carrying around, than to her void-of-any-thought face. Dylan Baker does what he can with the stereotypical bossman role, still not interesting though. (Please go check out Baker in “Happiness,” that’s a great movie. He’s the dad who has this sort of problem with small boys. A damned fine movie. Carmyn Manheim in the diner was so creepy, yet funny. Hard mix to master, but Todd Solondz did an amazing job. “Welcome to the Dollhouse” is another great one.) Also good is Michael Wincott, in yet another bad guy role. I wonder if he ever tires of playing the bad guy, with the notable exceptions of “Basquiat” and “Before Night Falls.” He’s a good actor who just happens to have a very cool voice. Somebody should give him a chance at a good solid lead role. Maybe he loves the bad guy thing, I don’t know.
Jezzie (Monica Potter) is a Secret Service agent who is assigned to check rich, important children into a snooty private school for rich, important children every day. When a little girl named Megan isn’t sitting at the lunch table, something is clearly amiss, and Monica’s on the trail! She’s too late, because the girl’s been hijacked by lumpy school teacher Soneji (Michael Wincott). The race is on to get Megan back to her rich, important parents. The police and FBI people wave their badges around, and Megan gets hot tea and goes for a swim. Chases and ransom games ensue. The action is silly, and there wasn’t a single element that kept me even somewhat involved in the story. I knew from the freaking trailer the girl was fine, which left me with no feelings of suspense or danger.
I didn’t care for “Along Came a Spider,” but I guess watching it’s better than beating yourself with a tile coaster for an hour and a half. Not that anyone would give you that option. “Hey, go to this movie, or beat yourself with a coaster.” That’s probably as likely as Monica Potter emoting anything.
