Along Came a Spider (1 Viewer)

[WayneG]

I know it's old but I just watched it last night on DVD.

There's nothing more frustrating than getting to the end of a thriller and realizing you have no idea why anything in the story happened. At the 1/2 way point, I thought it was an average thriller - then there were plot twists that I never saw coming in a million years - because they didn't make any sense. At least not to me. Plot twists are great, but they have to be logical - even a little.

So this guy posed as a teacher for two years and nobody knew it - except the two SS agents. And they never did anything about it? Because they knew he was going to kidnap the girl and they could cash in? This doesn't make any sense. Why did he have to wait so long?

Did he set up the Lindberg website so they could learn his real name or was that a mistake?

I didn't understand the whole deal with the Russian kid. Did he know he was emailing the kidnapper? Why did Monica Potter's character want to stay at the scene? Did she not want the guy to nab the kid? How did she know he was coming? How did she know the kid could get out of the embassy? How does the kid know how to get out of the embassy?

And then there's the whole twist where the guy comes to Cross's apartment, and then Monica Potter's character turns out to be...

I could go on and on, but it seems they just put twists and plot devices in for effect without any consideration for the logic. I would rather it have been a tame thriller with no twists than one with twists that are illogical.

And there are also too many scenes with Cross making brilliant discoveries or deductions with no explanation for how he came up with it.

I'm kind of off thrillers now I think after this and Secret Window.

 

[jason:g]

BTW this movie was directed by the same fellow who directed "007 Die Another Day".

 

[DougFND]

That really bad CG shot of the car crash on the bridge at the beginning kinda turned me off.

 

[Matt Czyz]

Someone needs to chuck this over to the "Movies" forum.

 

[Malcolm R]

It's been a while since I watched this, but I seem to recall they made a lot of changes from the novel, seemingly just for the sake of change. The novel is very different.

Hollywood did the same to "The Bone Collector." Lots of changes for no good reason, and to the detriment of the film.

 

[Alex Spindler]

Haven't read the book (but have read a few from the author before), but there are a great deal of rather bad circumstances that they build here.

You have this wannabe mythic copycat, who stages an elaborate snatch scheme. But apparently his true goal is to get the russian kid, but he can't get him alone. Apparently his bodyguards are on him like glue. So he observes the close relationship with a senator's girl, so he kidnaps her. And then he bases his entire plan on being able to coax the russian kid out by masquerading as the girl and emailing him? How doesn't this seem to be the weakest master plan ever. This assumes a)the boy and girl's relationship is so strong that the kid will make rash decisions, b)the boy will be able to avoid the security system of his secure home to be snatched, c)the boy will not tell someone in authority that he is in contact with the girl, d)the boy will not make the amazing logical leap that if the girl can email him, perhaps she should be emailing the cops.


At least as far as the movie is concerned, I found it to be an extremely weak part of the whole plot. The Secret Service agents was kind of silly (I'm planning to counter-kidnap then murder a senators daughter and my co-conspirator while being in a high profile position with access to information - better keep the whole plot on my PC with a password like acesandeights), but it isn't nearly as bad as the basic kidnapping.

 

[Adam_ME]

The part with Cross discovering the plan on the computer was reshot after test audiences hated the original ending. You can tell by Morgan Freeman's appearance being different from earlier in the film. Which of course makes one wonder what the first ending was since it apparently sucked even more than the one they replaced it with.