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.

This moving picture contains thrills , unstoppable action , fighting , pursuits and lots of deaths , as it has a high body count . The cop and psychologist Alex Cross (Tyler Perry) works for the Detroit Police Department along with his colleague Tommy Kane (Edward Burns) , and promising rookie Monica Ashe (Rachel Nichols) investigating deaths of some criminals . At the beginning , it seems to be a reckoning. Alex Cross is on his last police duty and along way he finds out the murders result to be commited by a killer series nicknamed Picasso who's been torturing and killing wealthy businessmen in Detroit . While Cross is dedicated to his work , he's just as committed to his home life, and is excited to be aware his wife Maria (Carmen Ejogo) is pregnant once again . Soon when the assignment gets personal, Cross is pushed to the edge of his moral and psychological limits to end this once and for all. Don't ever cross Alex Cross !.

The film contains high-energy action , noisy thrills , struggles, emotion, and spectacular scenes with an impressive climax . It's a passable action movie plenty of thrills, chills , explosions , firepower, gun-play and breathtaking chases . The picture is thrilling and exciting, though also a routine actioner with no much sense at times . The flick contemplates the old themes of trust , friendship , vengeance , humiliation and cold violence . There are echoes here of many other action movies and behind the deceits , plot twists and manipulation . An adrenalitic thriller with unstopped action-packed and grisly violence , being loosely based on the novel Alex Cross by James Patterson and particularly on the character of the expert Forensic psychologist Cross . This is a nail-biting picture stars Tyler Perry, who's plunged into a highly dangerous cat and mouse game , vengeance and deception - where things are not always what they appear to be , in which the stubborn investigator refuses to be defeated , as he battles his way to an overwhelming ending . Morgan Freeman who played the two previous roles suggested the British Idris Elba (Mandela) ; however , eventually the charater was to Tyler Perry playing a lawman torn between justice and personal vendetta , he is a good actor but more adequate in his ordinary comedy genre than in mystery/thriller genre . His antagonist turns out to be Matthew Fox , famous from ¨Lost¨ series , here he lost weight with a strict diet and doing gym to earn muscle for playing the role , as he took about five months to prepare for his character which he felt was enough time not only to get his body into shape . There are continuous remarks in the novel "Alex Cross" to both Morgan Freeman and Tyler Perry, the references to Freeman pay tribute to his role as Cross in ¨Kiss the girls¨ (1997) by Gary Fleder and ¨Along came a spider¨ (2001) by Lee Tamahori .

The film is produced with high budget by John Friedberg , George Furla and writer James Patterson himself. The motion picture was regularly directed by Rob Cohen . A nice director of hits and one of the 1970's "baby moguls", Rob built a thriving career as a producer, before concentrating full time on directing from the 1990's, with high adrenaline action blockbusters such as ¨xXx¨ (2002) and ¨Dragon, Bruce Lee life¨ (1993). He is the creator of ¨The Fast and the Furious¨ (2001) saga , Universal Pictures' biggest franchise of all time. He often directs high-energy action films as ¨Daylight¨ (1996), ¨The Fast and the Furious¨ (2001), ¨xXx¨ (2002), and other inferior successes such as ¨Stealth¨ , ¨Skulls¨, ¨Dragonheart¨ , among others. Rating : 5/10 . Mediocre , only for Alex Cross saga followers.

If you think you might like this movie from the trailer...go see it and ignore the bad reviews...its a good movie. If this is the worse movie you seen - you haven't seen very much. As for being predictable - easy to say that- and there aren't many movies out there thats not a bit predictable. The acting was OK, yes it really was - some of the lines they had to deliver weren't the best, but that isn't the actors fault. The thing that keep this from being really good was the directing, camera work, and editing. It really reduced the quality of the movie. Often you will see a shaking camera during a action scene - we all seen that before - but this movie takes it too a whole new level of shaking camera...who ever decided to do this and edit it so badly -needs to take the blame here on this movie for it not being what it could have. But overall for me - last night after the football game, it was an enjoyable evening at the movies.

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.

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).