Alex Cross (2012)

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.