Alex Cross

I just got through seeing Alex Cross. It was a good enough movie to pay the $5.75 matinée price. The movie had decent action scenes, which is totally out of the norm for Tyler Perry, that kept me entertained. The acting in this movie was pretty good and Tyler Perry himself did do a pretty good job with his part especially being that this is his first action roll. But with all that being said I still can see why Morgan Freeman turned the roll down. This movie was kind of predictable. I was telling my wife what was going to happen in the movie and I hadn't seen this movie before hand, done any research on this movie nor have I heard anyone talking about pieces of the movie. Now I've seen some of Tyler Perry's movies and those ones I have seen is what keeps me from watching his other movies, but this one, although he didn't make this one, is better than anything else he played in. Except Why Did I Get Married. So If you're not doing anything on a Sunday afternoon and want to see a little action and a little suspense it's O.K. to go and see this one.

Adapted from James Patterson's pulp novel 'Cross', this cat-and-mouse action flick more closely resembles an extended episode of 'NCIS' or 'Law and Order' than it does a fully-fledged feature film. The episodic narrative and say-everything-I'm-thinking dialogue destroys all subtlety and intelligence this may have had, whilst Rob Cohen's murky, in-your-face direction is over-zealous, distracting and at times makes it difficult to decipher what's actually going on in the action sequences. Tyler Perry is hugely popular in the States thanks to his dumbed-down, cross-dressing comedy output, but he goes full serious here to mixed results. Perry's not a complete dud yet is easily out-acted by Matthew Fox, whose psychotic serial killer – replete with twitches, tics and crazy eyes – is fun to watch and elevates this from total boredom to mediocre entertainment.

I have not ready the books or seen either of the previous films. Also I have only seen parts of Tyler Perry's other movies and that was enough to let me know I didn't want to watch any more. That being said, I felt that Tyler Perry's performance was very believable and very different than what I was expecting. At points in the film he is a bad-ass (albeit a bit overweight, but hey not all heroes hit the treadmill) and at others he is quite likable. He has some some quick and funny dialogue that he looked very at home with. All in all I now believe he is a pretty decent actor especially when comparing to his other "characters."

Matthew Fox plays an intense dude. Check out the images section to see what I'm talking about. He plays the insanity factor pretty hard and at times feels like he is nearing the "full retard" line but he never quite jumps the shark. It's sort of hit and miss. At times it's extremely effective and at others it seems a bit overdone. As a whole, pretty effective, and definitely crazy.

I liked Edward Burns as Alex's partner and Rachel Nicols as the third in their team. I was disappointed with basically everything else in the movie. Acting was for the rest of the characters pretty downright bad (with the exception of Dr. Cox who was acceptable). The stunts, aside from a cool fight scene in a business office, were pretty lame. The cinematography was average. The script was too heavy handed and convenient. The dialogue was good but the situations were not so much. It sort of felt like they were trying too hard to be gritty and raw.

Seriously though Tyler Perry is BY FAR better than you are expecting. Go see it just to have your perception of him shattered a bit.

When you make an action crime film please remember to connect all the dots so that we, the audience, can achieve some sense of the story line. The trailer was a slice of many of the best scenes but, unfortunately the real film falls so sadly short of good storyline due to poor dialog and some jerky acting that the viewer struggles to make sense of the various actors.

If this film had been prescreened (proof read) any average movie-goer would have pointed out just how poorly made it was. I sensed that Tyler Perry gave a over acted performance. I really wanted to like this film when it first came out but, it just was so boring and unimaginative I began to realize that it was due to faulty construction of scenes and character's dialog. This was mostly due to the director.

Aside from the acting, directing, casting, cinematography, cutting, special effects, and script there was nothing wrong with this film. I've read a half dozen James Patterson novels and they go fine with a domestic, factory made, mass produced (like his books) beer if you just want to kill time in a deck chair. It took a couple hits of Old Crow to get through this turkey, however. Prepare yourself, if you dare, for an embarrassingly clichéd and stereotypical performance by Cicely Tyson as Alex's mother, Giancarlo Esposito caricaturing himself, and a painful more than laughable attempt at Pulp Fiction style banter by Tyler Perry and Ed Burns (who doesn't even measure up to Edd Byrnes' level of mediocrity). We are also "treated" to another "man flying through the air from a bomb blast and emerging unscathed from the fireball" fantasy so prevalent in trashy American films (compare this bit to the Polish miniseries "Wataha" to see what a blast would really do). In sharp contrast to the rest of this schlock, however, is Mathew Fox's riveting and inspired performance as an assassin. Truly creepy and worth seeing even if you have to watch the rest of this Amateur Night at the Movies offering (hence 4 stars rather than one). For a similar plot, similar dénoument, and similar psycho assasin (Snake, in this case), but done with talent, artistry, and skill, check out Golgo 13: The Professional (1983).