Concern about the substandard originality of Goldsmith's last few years of output does not necessary entail that these efforts were becoming less effective in their roles within the films, but rather, it pointed towards a disturbing direction of stylistic repetition, especially in this particular genre of film. Perhaps most at fault for Goldsmith's decline was his selection of productions for which to write, and by sticking to his established collaborations more often than not, he ultimately became attached to trashy pictures. Even the composer himself lamented in his final years that he had become mired in terrible assignments. Ultimately, if Goldsmith wanted to win another Oscar, then writing derivative music for inevitable failures like Along Came a Spider was never the way to do it. While there remained a small audience for mundane Goldsmith works like Hollow Man and Along Came a Spider, it had become increasingly clear that the composer's days of even providing at least some minimally satisfying thematic or rhythmic cohesion in this genre of music had passed. What most collectors heard instead was a legendary composer on autopilot. It came as no surprise, therefore, that there is very little in Along Came a Spider that the composer's fans had not heard five or six times before in previous years. Of Goldsmith's minimalistic suspense scores, in fact, this one may be the most boring. It served as evidence that he wasn't even making a concerted effort in his 2000 and 2001 scores, including the subsequent The Last Castle, to create a new sound, a structural reinvention, or any fresh approach to his balance between the synthetic and the orchestral. Even with Mark McKenzie brought in to orchestrate Along Came a Spider (replacing Alexander Courage), listeners hear the same tired electronics and orchestral elements in predictable applications. Goldsmith's music spends a significant amount of its time establishing the setting and atmosphere of the story, leading to lengthy sequences of single cello plucks and other bumps and groans that require amplification just to hear.

In "Night Talk," Goldsmith's trademark metallic electronics drone away for three minutes, barely interrupted by occasional dissonant sways of the strings. The electronic sound effect of a vibrating metal wire heard in this cue is obviously meant to give an aural representation of a spider web, but it is not pronounced enough to be even remotely exciting. It recurs in "The Missing Picture" and "The Photos," diminishing late in "Profiling" and intermittent in the first half of "Not My Partner." As a conspiracy or thinking motif, the idea could have achieved much better results if Goldsmith could have harmonized it into a better structural base. The action sequences are stereotypically handled with standard hits of the orchestra, usually followed by the kind of drab brass figures that punctuate the later Star Trek scores but owe the most to U.S. Marshals. This technique exists throughout "Testing," in which collectors hear a mash-up of lesser material from the likes of The Haunting, Star Trek: Nemesis, and U.S. Marshals, with the same mode repeated in "Megan's Abduction" and taking a fuller rising and falling form in "Megan Overboard." These chasing or searching scenes also offer tiresome drum pad explosions from countless other Goldsmith scores. A rambling low piano technique owing back to the staggered rhythms of Capricorn One, Contract on Cherry Street, and First Blood is provided for suspense in "Cyber Meeting," "No Guard," and "Cop Killer." It becomes menacingly uncontrolled in "Missing Girl" and "Hi Alex" but returns to sneaking form in "The Ransom Part 1." In the two "The Ransom" cues (combined into one track on the initial album), however, Goldsmith finally develops the percussion and brass into extended figures that reveal the main theme for the score. It's a solid Goldsmith identity for this period, the initial ascending three notes of the theme highlighting another callback to the law enforcement realm in U.S. Marshals. The idea debuts at 0:59 into "The Ransom Part 1" on full brass before diminishing to trumpet at 2:32 and strings at 3:36. Lighter woodwinds take the theme at 0:07 into "The Ransom Part 2" and brass fragments toil with it at 1:35 and 2:01 into that cue. The theme is deconstructed with turmoil at 0:50 into "Profiling," but that's the extent of the melody in the whole score.

Even if the score for Along Came a Spider doesn't make prominent use of its main theme outside of this one scene, the "The Ransom (End Credits)" track is an edited together suite of highlights from the two "The Ransom" cues, so the film likely meant to confirm this idea as its primary identity. Why Goldsmith chose not to adapt the theme into any other part of his score is a mystery, for its three-note opening had much potential for interpolation into a number of emotional modes. There is another recurring theme in the score, one for loneliness on solemn piano heard at the start of "Alone" and at 3:41 into "Not My Partner," the latter building to a redemptive string bridge into the end credits. Outside of these points of marginal interest, Goldsmith collectors may find some merit in the brass-slurring and rhythmic suspense a la The Shadow late in "A Closed Book" and creepiness from The Haunting in "Watching." Otherwise, there is really nothing particularly interesting about the score for Along Came a Spider. The climax in "Not My Partner" doesn't resolve with any emotional satisfaction, the narrative of the film nonexistent in the music. The original 2001 Varèse Sarabande album left listeners with only 35 minutes of bland and uninspiring underscore, albeit including the two themes in all their performances. That was more than enough. In 2021, though, Varèse returned to the score, expanding the listening experience to over an hour padded at the end by the reprise of portions of "The Ransom" edited together for the end credits and a few minutes of various takes with incidental studio chatter tossed in. The longer album offers little benefit over the 2001 product. To the credit of his engineers, the mixing of Goldsmith's late scores remained consistent to the dynamic, reverb-friendly mix his music had enjoyed since 1998, leading to a phenomenal presence of the orchestra and crisp resonance in each of its sections. That outstanding presence is preserved on both albums. Better sound quality doesn't lead to originality, though, and longtime Goldsmith collectors had every reason to be quietly nervous at the time that the composer was losing his touch in the precious few assignments he had remaining as he battled age and illness before his death in 2004. Only the somewhat engaging pair of "The Ransom" cues elevates this otherwise utterly boring score above the lowest rating.  **   @Amazon.com: CD or Download