Along Came A Spider [HD]

4 1/2 Stars actually - This DVD is a bargain!
At the time that I am writing this review I see 140 of these DVDs listed used starting at $2.98. I would consider it a bargain for 3 times that!

To the movie:
I have not read the Alex Cross novels, so I am not able to comment on the movies based on them being faithful or not to the book. I HAVE seen both "Along Came A Spider" and "Kiss the Girls" and I enjoyed "Spider" much more, even though KTG was a good stab at the thriller genre.

Morgan Freeman inhabits Alex Cross more completely, and I suspect that my appreciation of his performance was a combination of his wonderfully intelligent acting and Lee Tamahori's direction. This version of Cross is intelligent, compassionate, brave, and scarcely takes a wrong step. He'd be a good teacher and a good person to go get a beer with. And if some psychotic killer were on your trail - he's the guy you'd want tracking the killer.

*WARNING! Silence of the Lambs Spoiler in this paragraph!*
The writers...

"I am living proof, that a mind is a terrible thing"
I have to admit that I never quite understand why a director would decide to make a movie of a perfectly good suspense/mystery story (a best seller no less) and proceed to make wholesale modifications to the plot. It almost guarantees that a good piece of the audience will dislike the film simply because it diverges from the book and never even notice that it is a good film all on its own.

And it is a good film. Morgan Freeman does a superb job of portraying Detective Alex Cross as he tries to peel away the layers of a kidnapping that gets away from everyone - kidnapper and police alike. Gary Soneji(Michael Wincott), a teacher at a posh school for the children of the powerful, decides to improve his social standing by kidnapping Megan Rose (Mika Boorem), a senator's daughter. He has everything worked out in detail, including getting Cross out of of semi-retirement, in order to demonstrate Soneji's brilliance.

Joined by Jezzie Flannigan (Monica Potter). who...

Convoluted Plot
It seems as though I am in the minority with this film. I enjoyed the plot twists, though you had to follow them carefully. If you were watching you could, in theory, figure out who the bad guys are, though you really do not have all the facts to truly figure out every detail, somewhat like a Sherlock Holmes story.

Our story focuses on one Gary Soneji (Michael Wincott), who has carefully planned to kidnap the daughter of U.S. Senator Hank Rose, unconvincingly played by Michael Moriarty. The point of the kidnapping is not to kidnap Megan (Mika Boreem), but to get access to a foreign diplomat's son, who is good friends with Megan. Mr. Soneji is, as might be guessed, a bit of a wacko. He wants Dr. Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman), a famous profiler, to chronicle the battle of wits between them. Ultimately there is a showdown between the two of them, but the showdown does not reveal the location of Megan.

The plot twists and thickens more, and yet, there were clues in several places,...

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