Poor Man’s Se7en. Morgan Freeman has been a few days way from retirement for his entire career but this movie’s villain doesn’t hold a torch to John Doe.
★★★☆☆
Earlier today, I heard someone describe The Eagles as rock and roll for people who don’t want to put the effort into liking music. This analogy is incredibly apt to a lot of things in life. We use the term acquired taste a lot. People work hard to induce Stockholm Syndrome for things like whiskey and wine. I’d like to think I’ve worked for hard to be able to enjoy all kinds of movies. I’ve forced myself to watch movies like Eraserhead and Irreversible. I have watched silent movies with Charlie Chaplin and westerns with John Wayne. I have watched movies with budgets numbering in the thousands to the hundreds of millions. None of that matters when it comes to a movie like Along Came a Spider.
Along Came a Spider is the pop-music of movies. The mimosa of films. It is a 3-star movie not on its strengths, but because there is very little objectionable about it. It hooks you in the same cheesy way that Law and Order does if you catch more than 5 minutes of it. It was based on a James Patterson novel, which you might recognize as the author of almost every novel for sale in an airport. I could compare it to hungover Sunday movies, but I’m not sure it’s the same kind of movie. Movies like those still have a charm and pace to them that don’t match this one, but they are definitely cousins.
Along Came a Spider, is a detective thriller starring Morgan Freeman a detective and psychologist who is on the bench after losing his partner. When a senator’s daughter is kidnapped, the kidnapper leaves a vital clue to him and he’s pulled back into the world he was ready to leave behind. He teams up with the secret service agent who was in charge of the girls security (played by Monica Potter) and together they need to figure out the workings of the mind of the antagonist. Potter was a bright spot for me as I have had little to no exposure to her before.
The movie plays out the way you expect to it including when it takes turns you don’t expect. The weakest part of this movie is definitely its ending. I’m supposed to be terrified and a little sad at the end, but it plays out over the course of about 45 seconds and feels so underwhelming after the ride of the middle of the movie. It’s disappointing, because there was an opportunity for the movie to become a 4 star movie on the back of the final scene. But it just couldn’t elevate itself the way it’s Rich Man’s counterpart Se7en could.
Along Came a Spider is currently streaming on Netflix.
Speaking of hungover sunday movies, next week David will be watching Rounders. This is a go to movie for me when I’m unsure what kind of movie I’m in the mood for. It’s always a safe choice. Following the food analogy, this is the grilled cheese of movies!
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