 Tagline: Don't Ever Cross Alex Cross Based on the character created by James Patterson and popularized by Morgan Freeman in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, Tyler Perry takes over as Dr. Alex Cross, a homicide detective/psychologist with the Detroit Police Department. Cross meets his match in a serial killer (Matthew Fox). The two face off in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, but when the mission gets personal, Cross is pushed to the edge of his moral and psychological limits in this taut and exciting action thriller. Storyline: After Detroit detective Alex Cross is told that a family member has been murdered, he vows to track down the killer. He soon discovers that she was not his first victim and that things are not what they seem. Written by Anonymous Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman on January 26, 2013 -- You'd think that a film advertising the pull quote "Tyler Perry like you have never seen him before" would necessarily be a good thing, right? Perry has become something akin to the Henry Ford of moviemaking, churning out a seemingly endless array of product that just as frankly seems, much like Ford's vaunted innovations in auto creation, to have been fabricated on an assembly line. Perry, the ostensibly penetrating examiner of modern day marriage. Check. Perry, the cross-dressing, over the top Madea. Check and double check. If you've seen one Perry film, you have in a very real sense seen most (if not all) of this multi-hyphenate's oeuvre. (I except the one Perry film that actually seemed to show a little range, For Colored Girls, a film that perhaps benefited from having been culled from a source not originally written by Perry himself.) For years I have been recommending to Perry (who I'm absolutely positive reads my reviews —not) to stop doing everything himself and to give himself over to different writers and (especially) different directors. Well, as they say, be careful what you wish for. Alex Cross is certainly a change of pace for Perry, but he seems oddly ill suited to play a dashing criminologist/psychologist/policeman, one who had previously been portrayed by the perhaps more appropriate Morgan Freeman in such films as Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. Alex Cross posits the titular character as something of a modern day Sherlock Holmes (that seems to be a trend lately, what with the Benedict Cumberbatch series about Holmes and the newish CBS series Elementary). Cross can deduce all sorts of salient information "from 20 yards away" (according to his partner) and also, due to his degree as a psychologist, intuit motives and the inner workings of the criminal mind. The problem with this conceit is that Alex Cross places this character in two worlds simultaneously: there's the gritty, police procedural world of Detroit's mean streets, and there's the frankly cartoonish world of a supervillain which seems ripped out of a Marvel comic book. It's an unsettling dichotomy at best, and it makes Alex Cross a rather unsettling roller coaster ride. Before we get into the nuts and bolts (emphasis on nuts) of Alex Cross' story, let's partake in a little quiz: let's say a film posits both a happily married policeman who discovers early in the film that his wife is pregnant, as well as the policeman's partner who is engaged in a torrid affair with a young female rookie. Both of these men then get involved in a really grisly murder investigation that quickly turns into a cat and mouse game with a highly trained assassin. What will happen to the women? A) They'll be harmed or worse by the bad guy; or B) They will continue to be a loving wife and eventual new mother in one case or a beautiful and loving girlfriend in the other, with nary a scratch on either of their pretty little heads. If there's any even minor question about which choice is correct, Alex Cross may well end up providing some putative entertainment value for those who haven't seen formulations like this in countless other crime dramas. For those of you who made the correct choice, it's somewhat indicative of how predictable Alex Cross is at virtually every turn. Alex Cross was culled from the James Patterson novel Cross and is largely built around Cross (Tyler Perry) and his partner Tom Kane (Edward Burns) being called to the site of a hideous murder (which also involved torture), with both cops quickly figuring out they're involved in a larger scheme that involves multiple potential assassinations. The viewer has already been let in on the fact that the assassin is a demented but very resourceful man who is identified as Picasso (Matthew Fox) due to his penchant for drawing lovely cubist art renditions of his latest murder victims. In one of several kind of strange gambits that screenwriters Marc Moss and Kerry Williamson and director Rob Cohen undertake, we get the first part of the first murder delivered in "real time", with the rest of the hideous scenario playing out as Cross reconstructs the crime scene, Sherlock Holmes-style. (Without spoiling too much about this admittedly very disturbing scene, there's a glaring lapse of logic which is never explained. Picasso drugs his victim with a something akin to Rohypnol, leaving her paralyzed and unable to speak as he then tortures her, demanding the password to her laptop computer. Ummm. . .excuse me, you just drugged her and she can't speak, dimwit!) Cross and Kane, along with help from Kane's rookie girlfriend Monica Ashe (Rachel Nichols) do some surprisingly effective police work and manage to thwart Picasso's next murder attempt, which really, really ticks off the would be assassin. That's when things get personal, in one of Alex Cross' most predictable and manipulative elements. Even without that perhaps (literally) fatal misstep, though, Alex Cross has already faltered in being able to balance its realistic procedural side with a villain that would be more at home in an X Men movie. In fact Fox's Picasso is by far the most riveting thing about Alex Cross, if for no other reason than how completely the actor has physically transformed himself for the role. He's obviously shed a lot of weight, to the point where his face looks almost skeletal, and a shaved head only adds to the ghastly appearance of the character. The film wants to be a supposedly visceral exploration of one man's moral degradation as he proceeds down a road of vengeance, and while Perry perhaps does better than might be expected in this portrayal, he still lacks the gravitas and nuance that a less self-conscious actor might bring to the role (I couldn't help but think what someone like Denzel Washington could have done with this part, to name just one alternative). The film does deserve some kudos for using both its Detroit and Cleveland locations spectacularly well almost all of the time, and Burns as well as a large supporting cast (including Cicely Tyson, Jean Reno and John C. McGinley) do largely very commendable work. But the central issues with Alex Cross are ones of tone and balance. Is this supposed to be a gritty urban crime drama or an over the top graphic novel? My hunch is not even Alex Cross himself would be able to deduce a good answer for that question. Alex Cross probably isn't the complete disaster that some critics made it out to be in its theatrical release, but that doesn't mean it's great, either. There's just a jarring disconnect between the relatively realistic (if awfully deductive) Alex Cross and the over the top villain he's pitted against. It's beyond even a showdown between, say, Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty and plays more like Sherlock Holmes against Magneto. The film looks quite handsome, and truth be told Perry is a lot better than even I would have expected, but the lion's share of the acting honors here go to Fox for a really disturbing (but effective) turn as an obviously insane killer. Fans of the Patterson novels might want to check this out as a rental, but I strongly doubt Perry's rabid regular fan base is going to be storming the battlements to see their erstwhile Madea playing it straight for a change. [CSW] -3.8- First and foremost the "Villain" makes this movie. If I add it to my collection it will primarily be because of him. With that said this was a good job restarting James Patterson's masterwork series, following up the work done with Morgan Freeman quite well. But the shining jewel of this piece is Matthew Fox as Picasso the hired killer who is always a great performer, but he took his game up to the highest level yet and was truly responsible for my giving this film a higher rating. Beyond getting in perhaps the best shape of any actor in history (no exaggeration intended). Picasso dives deep in the psychological pools that Patterson's antagonists are legendary for. Definitely the best display of thought process in the series thus far. He even gives his character a bit of a pout during one conversation that breaks the usual villain stereotype. One of my only complaints is that there's not enough of him. The phenomenal supporting cast of Rachel Nichols, Jean Reno, John C. McGinley just absolutely nailing it as always, a rare Cicely Tyson pleasure, and Edward Burns really showing up again like he used to in the old days, helped make Perry's debut as Cross solid. What stops this movie in its 5-star tracks dead at 4 stars for me is that the second half of the movie is rushed. The first half paces like a 2 hour masterpiece, then drops like an anvil during the rising action. The dialogue, the chase, the climax, and resolution needed another 20 minutes at least. I may still add this to my movie collection. [V4.5-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box motion codes were available at the time of this rental although they are available now. Cast Notes: Tyler Perry (Alex Cross), Edward Burns (Thomas Kane), Matthew Fox (Picasso), Jean Reno (Leon Mercier), Carmen Ejogo (Maria Cross), Cicely Tyson (Nana Mama), Rachel Nichols (Monica Ashe), John C. McGinley (Captain Richard Brookwell), Werner Daehn (Erich Nunemacher), Yara Shahidi (Janelle Cross), Sayeed Shahidi (Damon Cross), Bonnie Bentley (Detective Jody Klebanoff), Stephanie Jacobsen (Fan Yau Lee), Giancarlo Esposito (Daramus Holiday), Chad Lindberg (Chemist). IMDb Rating (02/11/17): 5.1/10 from 28,902 users
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