Along Came a Spider (2001)

"Personally I happend to like spiders" Alex Cross says.

Once again, Morgan Freeman delivers a wonderful part as Alex Cross. This movie keeps your going till the very end. Morgan Freeman could sell toilet bowls, and they be great!!! I reccomend this movie to any, any Morgan Freeman fan!!!!! July 22, 2008

Double-crossing cops and bandits

The film is rather simple but it works. And it works not because of the kidnapping of the child. Not because of the pathos that comes along with such a case all the time, every time. Not because of the failed attempt of the girl to escape. Not because of the child's father's over-reacting. It works because the plot is too simple to be accepted like that. A solitary man could not have planned and realized that plot in Washington DC, with the Russian security services looking after the son of the Ambassador and the secret service working there full time in that private school. Too much security in that school for such a kidnapping to have been done by only one person. Then there must have been accomplices and that's how the film works because we do not know who he or she or they is or are and we are looking out for the clues, for the punch line, for the final and supreme plotter. And that's just what it is all about, one plotter double-crossing the other or the others, or even maybe three tiers instead of just two, and maybe even four tiers, and we are double-crossed in a magnificent way just the very same way the profiling cop is double-crossed in a very standard way. The profiler is profiled by the criminal and then side-tracked because when you know the profile of the profiler the profiler becomes predictable and then inefficient, impotent. So that helps to take the medicine down indeed, even if the girl survives only because the criminals did not do one thing right, only one thing, one single and unique thing. It only takes one mistake for the best adventures to fail. Just find out which thing and who.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
May 28, 2008

Morgan Freemen is Alex Cross

The movie opens with a failed police sting. Dr. Alex Cross' (Freeman) watches as his partner goes over the cliff in a car with a serial killer.

Next, there's a kidnapping at a DC school for VIP Children. Emily Rose (the daughter of Senator Rose) is kidnapped by her teacher. Mika Boorem plays young Emily and this kid is not your average hostage. She's a bright young girl and she fights back.

Alex Cross is still recovering in his home when the kidnapper calls him and involves him in the case. It seems the man wants to become as famous Lindbergh kidnapper. Dr. Cross is along to 'document the case.' Cross is joined by Jezzie Flannigan (Potter) the Secret Service agent at the school who failed to see the kidnapper as a threat.

"Along Came a Spider" is a fast-paced thriller with the added value of a child hostage and two police who are trying to prove themselves after failures. If I could ask James Patterson one question, it would be who he had in mind for Dr. Alex Cross when he wrote the novels. I cannot see anyone else other than Morgan Freeman even when I am reading the books.

Overall, the film is very well done. I preferred "Kiss the Girls" but I do own both DVDs and watch them periodically. March 29, 2008

Thrilling indeed

Parts of the story are a little hard to believe, but as far as thrillers go, this one is actually pretty thrilling. Morgan Freeman is great, as always, in the role of Alex Cross, a forensic psychologist in the trail of a kidnapper. Monica Potter (whatever happened to her?) is pretty good too, and the plot has enough twists and turns to keep you guessing. January 24, 2008

Along Came a Spider

Along Came a Spider
This was a fantistic thriller without too much violence or profanity. The plot twists kept you guessing until the end. November 4, 2007

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