Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Along Came a Spider (2001)

Director: Lee Tamahori

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

In this standard prequel to the action-thriller Kiss the Girls, Freeman reprise his role as Washington DC's Zen detective Alex Cross, a happily married criminal profiler, writer and catch-penny philosopher who makes galleons as a hobby. But at present his confidence has been eroded by guilt over the death of his partner after a car crash at a dam. When Cross receives a tip off about an abduction direct from the perpetrator, he finds himself up against a publicity-seeking psychopath intent on upstaging the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Regrettably, every transition in this adaptation of James Patterson's novel is rammed home by the emphatic score and by the derivative enthusiasm of the brash direction. As Cross's temporary new partner, blonde, neat, pretty (and unlikely) Secret Service agent Potter is a moist-eyed, quiver-lipped and inept protector of a Senator's 12-year-old daughter Megan (Boorem, stoic). If Freeman's gravitas, feeling and expression lift the film out of the ordinary, Tamahori's over reliance on his star's 'natural dignity' leaves it tainted by self-conscious positive attitudinising.

Author: WH 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Lee Tamahori

Producer: David Brown, Joe Wizan

Cast: Morgan Freeman, Monica Potter, Michael Wincott, Penelope Ann Miller, Michael Moriarty, Dylan Baker, Mika Boorem, Anton Yelchin full cast

Genre(s): Thrillers

Duration: 103 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.