Alex Cross

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.

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.

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.

Although I have only given this movie a 5/10 I still don't regret watching it. There are simply a lot of better films out there. It was one I managed to get cheaper tickets for so perhaps that's why I am not as critical as others. I found it entertaining and I was fully engrossed in the story. I felt some of the acting was a bit ropey but then again I thought Matthew Fox was superb. He really did portray a rather scary character, very different from that of Jack in Lost. There was some rather cheesy and altogether cheap parts to the movie, but overall it was a good watch. I can understand why some may have given this film a very low rating, but for me I saw a lot of positives.

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.