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Along Came a Spider (film)

Along Came a Spider is a 2001 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by Lee Tamahori. It is the second installment in the Alex Cross film series and a sequel to the 1997 film Kiss the Girls, with Morgan Freeman and Jay O. Sanders reprising their roles as detective Alex Cross and FBI-agent Kyle Craig. The screenplay by Marc Moss was adapted from the 1993 novel of the same title by James Patterson, but many of the key plot elements of the book were eliminated. The film was a box office success, despite receiving mixed-to-negative reviews from critics like its predecessor.

Along Came a Spider
Theatrical release poster
Directed byLee Tamahori
Screenplay byMarc Moss
Based onAlong Came a Spider
by James Patterson
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyMatthew F. Leonetti
Edited byNeil Travis
Music byJerry Goldsmith
Production
companies
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • April 6, 2001 (2001-04-06)
Running time
103 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$28 million[1]
Box office$105.2 million[1]

Plot

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After Washington, D.C.-based forensic psychologist and author Dr. Alex Cross loses control of a sting operation resulting in his partner Tracie Fisher's death, he retires from the police force. His departure is short-lived when Megan Rose, the daughter of a prominent US senator, is kidnapped from her private school by a man named Gary Soneji, who is disguised as her new computer science teacher. US Secret Service Special Agent Jezzie Flannigan is held responsible for the breach in security that allowed Soneji to take the girl. In response, Cross and Flannigan join forces to track down Soneji and find Megan.

After Cross receives a phone call from Soneji, he finds a small sneaker belonging to Megan in his mailbox. Cross realizes that Soneji is trying to emulate the 1932 Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. kidnapping, a crime so infamous that it became known as the Crime of the Century. With the knowledge that Soneji is trying to make a name for himself in the same way as Richard Hauptmann, Cross is even more determined to bring Soneji to justice and get Megan back safely, which he posits is a storyline worthy of one of his true crime books.

Despite Soneji's now-public identity, the FBI is unable to capture him until Cross secretly tracks his calls and locations. Unbeknownst to Cross and Flannigan, Soneji's abduction of Megan is only a small part of his elaborate plan to secure greater fame. His coordinated kidnap plot is revealed to center around the son of the President of Russia, Dimitri Starodubov. Soneji attempts to capture the young boy despite the protection provided by police and security guards.

However, before he is able to kidnap Starodubov, Cross and Flannigan confront Soneji and rescue the boy. In desperation, Soneji sends Cross a ransom demand asking for $10 million in diamonds from the president. If Cross fails to comply, Soneji will have no further reason to reach an agreement and Megan will be killed. Knowing there is no other recourse, Cross complies and follows a set of directions to a number of public phone-booths spread out throughout the city where he will make deliveries and collect further instructions. Cross eventually delivers the diamonds by throwing them off a moving train to a man in black.

Soneji arrives at Flannigan's home in order to kidnap her and use her as ransom. However, after arriving and disabling Flannigan with a taser, Soneji finds Cross present, and challenges him about the ransom. Cross comments on Soneji receiving $12 million in ransom, to which Soneji does not react. He realises that Soneji did not demand the ransom, and when Soneji attempts to escape, Cross shoots him dead.

Upon further investigation, Cross realises that Flannigan had known about Soneji for some time and had used him as a pawn in her own plot to collect a ransom from Megan's family. She and fellow agent Ben Devine had crafted a plan to do just that and had been slowly gathering Soneji's information to use when the time was right.

Cross realizes that Flannigan has been playing them all along. This culminates in Cross accessing Flannigan's personal computer, which contains all the details of the Soneji plot leading up to the kidnapping of Megan, the attempted kidnapping of Dmitri, including his information, timelines, and plans.

Cross tracks Flannigan down to a secluded farmhouse. Flannigan has brutally murdered Devine, and she is now intent on killing Megan. Cross gets the better of Flannigan and arrives in time to prevent another tragedy. He takes aim, and with a single shot, stops Flannigan from pursuing Megan. Cross then takes Megan to safety, delivering her back to her parents and a sense of closure to a traumatic ordeal. Megan and her family now have the opportunity to move on with their lives, thanks to Cross.

Cast

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Production

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Writing

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One of the primary elements of the book screenwriter Marc Moss eliminated from his script was that Soneji is actually a mild-mannered suburban husband and father suffering from dissociative identity disorder resulting from having been abused as a child. After a lengthy trial for kidnapping and several murders not included in the film, he is found guilty but remanded to a mental institution to serve his sentence. Also missing from the film is a romantic relationship shared by Cross and Jezzie, her trial and eventual execution by lethal injection, and the discovery of Megan (Maggie as she is known in the book), hidden away with a native Bolivian family near the Andes Mountains, two years after her kidnapping.[citation needed]

A few other minor differences from the original book include: Dimitri (Michael "Shrimpie" Goldberg as referred to in the book) being kidnapped at the same time as Megan (Maggie); Megan's (Maggie's) mother was the more famous of her parents, being a popular actress; when the children are kidnapped they are sprayed with chloroform spray.[citation needed]

Reception

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Box office

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Box office receipts totaled US$105,178,561, of which $74,078,174 was from the United States having earned US$16,712,407 in its opening weekend at 2,530 theaters.[1]

Critical response

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On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 32% based on reviews from 126 critics. The site's critics consensus was: "Derivative and contains too many implausible situations".[2] On Metacritic the film has a score of 42% based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[3]

Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times called the film an "overplotted, hollow thriller, which crams in so much exposition that characters speak in fetid hunks for what seems like minutes at a time ... But Spider couldn't be better served than it is by Mr. Freeman, whose prickly smarts and silken impatience bring believability to a classless, underdeveloped thriller ... Still, he is wasted in this impersonal, almost inept thriller".[4]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a mixed 2 out of 4 stars, calling it "loophole-riddled, verging on the nonsensical". He wrote: "I'm wondering, since Dr. Alex Cross is so brilliant, how come he doesn't notice yawning logical holes in the very fabric of the story he's occupying?" Nonetheless, Ebert thought that Freeman's performance was commendable: "Maybe actors should be given Oscars, not for the good films they triumph in, but for the weak films they survive".[5]

Robert Koehler of Variety felt "the very characteristics that have made Cross so appealing, particularly his mind-tickling abilities to assess and outmaneuver his criminal opponents, are reduced here to the most fundamental and predictable level ... As reliable as any actor in Hollywood, Freeman delivers the requisite gravitas, but the bland script curtails any personal touches he might have inserted were his sleuth character unraveling a truly vexing mystery".[6]

However, critic Harvey O'Brien weighed in with the sentiment that "unlike, for example, the overblown kidnap movie Ransom, Along Came a Spider plays down its sensational elements. It favours the procedural aspects of Cross' investigation which, though infected with the usual 'Eureka' factor of brilliant discoveries by the leading man at regular intervals just when it looked like he was stumped, are largely delivered with sincerity. Freeman has such a strong grip on this kind of determined, middle aged, everyman character by now that he can easily take the audience along for the ride. The film itself is otherwise sincere in general, with no real attempt at smarmy black humour or winks to the audience. It draws you in to a (relatively) realistic depiction of a tense situation in which people behave less like action heroes and more like human beings".[7]

Accolades

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Jerry Goldsmith won the BMI Film & TV Award for his original score, and Morgan Freeman was nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture but lost to Denzel Washington for Training Day.[citation needed]

Series reboot

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Main article: Alex Cross (film)

There were no further sequels, but the character of Alex Cross was rebooted with a 2012 film adaptation of the novel Cross under the title Alex Cross starring Tyler Perry in the titular role.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Along Came a Spider". Box Office Mojo. IMDb.com, Inc. Retrieved September 20, 2020.
  2. ^ "Along Came a Spider (2001)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  3. ^ "Along Came a Spider". Metacritic. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
  4. ^ Mitchell, Elvis (April 6, 2001). "FILM REVIEW; Weaving an Intricate Web To Trap a Wily Kidnapper". The New York Times. Retrieved September 20, 2012.
  5. ^ Ebert, Roger (April 6, 2001). "Along Came A Spider". Chicago Sun-Times. Chicago, Illinois: Sun-Times Media Group. Retrieved October 10, 2020 – via RogerEbert.com.
  6. ^ Koehler, Robert (March 31, 2001). "Along Came a Spider". Variety. Los Angeles, California: Penske Media Corporation. Retrieved September 20, 2020.
  7. ^ "Along Came a Spider".
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