Alex Cross (2012)

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.

Fmovies: This movie is laughably bad. The only saving grace in its favour is the ability to add it to the pantheon of movies that are so bad they are good. Only, it takes itself far too seriously, and think it's far too good, to be worthy of an addition to that list. The movie is nonsense in every way. Without spoiling anything, I will sum up how ludicrous the movie is with one comment (and this kind of stuff runs throughout the movie): we are supposed to believe that a pudgy Tyler Perry can beat a super cut, super bad-ass Matthew Fox in a fight, when at the beginning of the movie Matthew Fox destroys a seasoned MMA fighter. As Dr. Evil would say: Rrrrrrright. Tyler Perry, by the way, is a horrendously bad actor. I cannot believe they were talking sequel before this movie came out. I also can't believe that the author of the books about Alex Cross was actually touting this movie. If I had written this character, and this trash came out, I could not distance myself more from this movie. I'd be like Alan Moore, and not allow my name anywhere on this crap.

This is perhaps not the worst film i've seen, and may deserve a 3 or maybe even a 4 if I was in a happy way. The things that pulls this down i expectations parred with the title of the film. I do not recognise Alex Crossin this movie, and whats with the sidekick. Come on if you know Alex Cross, you also know his childhood friend and that sure ain't Tommy. The whole setup was like Cross going Dirty Harry. Its like the new Sherlock movies where the great mind, becomes a chaos of violence. I don't know what James Patterson thinks of this movie, but if its positive it must be money talking. Liked Picasso thou, Matthew Fox really found his crazy eyes in this one.

Alex Cross fmovies. This is hands down one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life, and I've seen a boatload of lousy movies. Both the dialog and plotting are hackneyed beyond description--not one original idea or twist, and not a single exchange that feels genuine. It's the kind of childishly obvious genre rehash in which you can tell who's going to be killed just by the relative one-dimensionality of their characters. Matthew Fox, who clearly dropped his body fat to zero for this film, will one day look back and regret all those months he went without a decent meal, because a) the movie is terrible, and b) his portrayal of a psychotic killer is ultimately a study in cliché. Ed Burns furrows his brow convincingly enough, but his easygoing charm has nowhere to go here. Likewise John McGinley, whose neurotic fatalism seems plucked from an entirely different and more lighthearted police procedural being filmed down the street. And then there's Tyler Perry, who expends so much energy in a futile attempt to project faux masculinity and criminological gravitas that he apparently has nothing left for tangential stuff like changing his facial expression once in a while. Perry can thank his lucky stars he's already a Hollywood fixture, because If this were his first movie, he'd never get another offer--truly, he's that bad.

Tyler Perry takes on the Alex Cross character and fails miserably. Though he's hardly the only one at fault here.

The trouble starts with the screenplay, which is nothing short of dismal. All of the main characters are one dimensional with no development whatsoever. Patterson's novel is condensed down to a formulaic and predictable plot, where you can see trouble coming a mile away. There is no development of the villain, why he does what he does and why a professional assassin would make the choices that he makes. Time makes absolutely no sense in this movie. Events must have occurred over a period of time in the book that have been condensed down to minutes in this movie. I haven't seen a movie in a while we're I've said to myself "You've got to be kidding me" multiple times because the scene was so implausible. Rob Cohen's direction is nothing short of terrible. Action scenes that are so blurry you can't tell who is beating up who. When there's not action scenes, the rest of the film is a talking heads 70's made for TV movie. The acting flat out stinks (with the exceptions of all to brief appearances of Cicely Tyson and Giancarlo Esposito). No chemistry with Perry and Ed Burns and no chemistry between the villain (Matthew Fox) and Perry. The movie score mostly sounds like a movie of the week from the 70's. The only redeeming value I find in this film is the location. There were some nice uses of Detroit buildings in the film. Other than that, don't waste your time.

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.