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FILM CRITIQUE:
There are three good reasons to see "Along Came a Spider". The first and primary one is to enjoy seeing Morgan
Freeman reprise his role of Dr. Alex Cross, a District of Columbia police detective and forensic psychologist. The man is
a master of nonverbal communication and he's also great when he's verbally communicating. Freeman is a consummate actor who
fills all his roles with warmth and intelligence and he is an absolute pleasure on the silver screen. And what a great Black
American role model as a man who lives by his brains and not by his hustle and jive.
The second reason to see this movie is for the lush cinematography. You can feel the humidity of Washington, D.C. and
the wetness when it rains, the closeness of the boat, the darkness of the warehouses, and the authenticity of the high school.
This movie is exceptionally well-filmed.
Finally, this movie has a great opening sequence, something on the order of a James Bond movie. However, given the notoriety
of the poor financial condition of Washington, D.C., one might wonder where all the money came from to buy all these high
tech gadgets that are more suited to a spy thriller than this movie about D.C. police detective work.
And that is not the last time you will be forced, distracted might be a better word, by the need to pull your own brain
out of its cinematic reverie and question just where was the logic in that scene?
While everyone will go to "Along Came a Spider" to see how author James Patterson's D.C. police detective solves
this political caper, most viewers will be left asking themselves, "If this guy (Dr. Alex Cross) is so smart, the author
of six or seven books on police detective work, how come he didn't himself see the gaping holes in many of this movie's sequences?"
Practically every movie demands that you suspend your belief in something. As one who loves movies and the joy of seeing
them, especially when they are great, I am always willing to check my brain at the door as long as the story doesn't ask too
much of my natural credulity. Otherwise, how could we enjoy any science fiction movies like "Star Wars" or the wonderful
recent epic romance "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" with its sword fights on treetops and martial arts artists
able to supersede the law of gravity?
No, what I am talking about are plot holes in the story line that defy logical explanation. Unfortunately, "Along
Came a Spider" is full of them. And what is worse, rather than discussing the movie's highlights on the way home with
your spouse, you will find yourself exchanging even more examples of story line flaws that the other might have noticed and
you didn't. This is not the post mortem discussion, no pun intended, that any movie that aspires to be intelligent would
want to have take place after its patrons have left the theater. I will wager that someday someone will write an essay on
all the holes in this movie because it is a classic for that reason alone.
This movie is interesting in that there are failures on both sides which help to add to the tension and which also help
to create a better story. Furthermore, there are several plot twists and turns in the movie as people turn out to be not whom
you had assumed they might be and the movie also changes directions in areas that you would not have thought possible at the
beginning.
Unfortunately, computers are usually involved in the connecting of these plot links, and the computer usage in this movie
defies belief as everyone, even the school kids, seem so unbelievably adept at them that everything, all kinds of information,
just seem to leap off the screen and into the lap of the investigators involved.
One example involves a computer access code correctly guessed at by Dr. Cross. While this in of itself is highly improbable,
even more improbable is Dr. Cross typing in the correct version with just his first attempt. And then the information he is
looking for just jumps off the screen at him.
Now, even if you had someone's correct computer access code, how would you know which version to type it in? Are the numbers
spelled or listed? Is "and", for example, spelt "and" or "&"? "Along Came a Spider"
simplifies, one might say dumbs down, this whole process to less than credible levels.
My final criticism is the selection of Monica Potter as Secret Service Agent Jezzie Flannigan. To use an expression much
in use in our political discourse today, she just did not have the "gravitas" to play opposite a veteran like Morgan
Freeman. She didn't look the part and she couldn't act the part of a secret service agent.
This is another example of a movie studio's tendency to go with a young, captivating blonde star rather than going for
a brainier, older, and more mature actress that this role demands. I keep wondering just how great someone like Sigourney
Weaver would have been playing Jezzie Flannigan.
"Along Came a Spider" is an enjoyable movie in parts and certainly worth seeing for the enjoyment of Morgan
Freeman as an actor who is at the top of his game.
Kudos also have to be given to Mika Boorem for her very talented portrayal of the young but gutsy and inventive Megan
Rose Dunne.
But be prepared to park your credulity and your computer understanding at the door and also be prepared for, unfortunately,
the laughter of some of your fellow audience members who are less than willing to buy into some of the premises advanced in
this movie.
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FILM SYNOPSIS:
The story begins in a moving car where an undercover female police officer, wired to the hilt, is playing bait to the
driver who is a suspected serial rapist. Following this car are several other police cars and a police helicopter is also
tailing above at a discrete distance. The plan goes terribly awry and the female police detective is killed. This is the opening
sequence that I referred to above, and all I can say is that it sure does grab your attention. You quickly settle in for what
looks to be a great detective thriller.
It turns out that this deceased police detective was the admired partner of Dr. Alex Cross, and he goes into a long term
funk after this disaster, for which he has assumed partial responsibility. His mind goes from analytic detective work to
the equally tedious manual labor of building miniature ships while on recuperative leave at home. (My wife, who has read the
book, complains that his warm family life was left out of the movie here, and that is a shame as any movie is always enhanced
by having its characters more fully fleshed out.)
The movie shifts to the exclusive Cathedral School of Washington, D.C., where all the politicians and embassy personnel
send their children. Cathedral School is loaded with the latest high tech security gadgetry as even the son of the Russian
President is in attendance. Russian security personnel are there to guard him and secret service agents are also there to
guard the children of the members of the U. S. Congress.
Dimitri (Anton Yelchin), the son of the Russian President, is a close friend of Megan Rose Dunne (Mika Boorem), the daughter
of Senator Thomas Dunne (Anton Yelchin) and his wife Katherine Ross Dunne (Penelope Ann Miller). They conspire with each other
during class by exchanging secret messages encoded in photographs of Michael Jordan and animals.
Unbeknownst to them, their teacher, Gary Soneji (Michael Wincott), is wise to their tricks as he has secretly logged every
one of their messages. He is a strange, disheveled professorial type with an unnatural affinity for the famous transatlantic
pilot Lindberg and the kidnapping and subsequent murder of his young son.
Professor Soneji calls Megan into his office to berate her for this exchange of messages as he has a voluminous file of
all their coded exchanges. However, this is merely a ruse as he abruptly turns from a berating teacher to a kidnapper as he
ties Megan up and stuffs her into a video display cart packed with computer terminal covers hiding a false interior. Interrupted
during this process by a fellow teacher, Soneji quickly dispatches her by strangulation with a computer cord.
The rest of the school is enjoying lunch when one of the secret service agents, Jezzie Flannigan (Monica Potter), notices
that Megan hasn't shown up yet and inquires as to her whereabouts. Rushing into Soneji's office, they discover the body of
his fellow teacher. The alarm is sounded, and the agents all rush out into the street, but it is all to no avail as Soneji
has successfully eluded them.
It develops (highly improbably) that Soneji has worked at the school for two years wearing false makeup hiding his real
identity.
He is also a fan of Dr. Cross' many books and calls him up shortly after the kidnapping to challenge him to a duel of
detective wits as he respects Cross as an equal intellectual adversary. Suffice it to say that Dr. Cross is equally adept
at computers and the cat and mouse game is on as Megan's parents give Dr. Cross full authority over the Secret Service policemen
to pursue Soneji.
Jezzie Flannigan, for her part, is so distraught at having bungled her guardianship of Megan that she begs Dr. Cross to
allow her to be his associate. Rather than having her tail him as a sort of detective stalker, he brings her into his detective
analytical processes.
Soneji has escaped to his boat in the Potomac River and has locked poor Megan below deck in a secure compartment. He then
proceeds to periodically telephone Dr. Cross with coded messages as to his plans. But what are his plans? Is Megan the end
to his means, or is there something else that Soneji is after? Dr. Cross is at his wits end trying to analyze Soneji's character
from the limited contact given to him, but nothing adds up to what it should be.
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