"Don't over think it, I'm just looking for a bad guy," says the detective/psychologist Alex Cross. And rightly so. These kinds of films are righteously ignored, unless one can stand mindlessness and frustration that seemingly, mystically dissipates into atmosphere. Superlatively unenviable, Tyler Perry is playing Alex Cross, an expert Detroit-based detective and psychologist. The role was previously personified and classed up by Morgan Freeman in earlier films Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider.
Alex Cross, loosely based from the James Patterson bestseller Cross, is the origin story of the known detective and follows the cat-and-mouse-chase concerning him and a purely psychotic killer self-named Picasso (played by Matthew Fox). Picasso is supposed to be the type of serial killer who is either completely deranged or driven by a demon - he cuts off fingers just for the heck of it, and threatens the safety of Cross's wife, again just for the same reason which is none. The predicament here, is that this movie incarnation runs on an unintelligent screenplay by Marc Cross and Kerry Williamson that no matter how much competence the estimable Matthew Fox injects in here, the rear end is a laughable cinematic mishap.
Perry's soft facial features doesn't compliment Cross's formidable nature, and for a moment there, you deduce how Alex Cross may be far less intense than Perry's starred and directed Madea films. In acting perspective though, he doesn't go underneath than what's serviceable. He does right by his role, but he's unjustifiably miscasted for it. Like Fox's case, Perry gives everything he could, but the script gives even more room for unintentionally laughable moments, dragging these actors to the shame of it. Working behind-cam is director Rob Cohen, probably the source of all of this; but then, for The Fast and the Furious and XXX director, what more will you expect?
The film, in practically every fight and key sequence, involves a lot of shaky-cam, which frankly was recently mastered by only a few people, one of them, rightly mentioned is director Gavin O'Connor in Warrior. "He wants to make somebody hurt. I don't know who - maybe his mother," Cross's wild guess after examining Picasso's victim. I mean, who says that, really? Alex Cross is a saving grace for the frizzling Taken 2 stealing the "worst action film of the year" title from it.
The poster says "Don't ever cross Alex Cross," and it's one advice I should have followed. C-
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