"Alex Cross" was not a film that I was looking forward to by any stretch. I've never seen nor intended to see a single Tyler Perry movie despite him releasing roughly 47 of them every year, and my plans were happy and comfortable remaining exactly there. I don't think he's a good actor based on what I've seen of him, all his films looked asinine and boring, I hate the Eddie Murphy fat-suit schtick, he's kind of racist if you listen to him talk, and the fact that he is so transparently marketing a cut and paste product for his brainwashed fan-base consisting manly of white teenaged girls and has never been called on it is frankly irritating to me.
As you may know, this film is a reboot which follows the character of Alex Cross, who was played by Morgan Freeman in "Kiss The Girls" and "Along Came A Spider." Apparently those were such big hits that they felt a need to bring Cross back again. And they thought Tyler Perry was a good replacement for Morgen Freeman. I can't even make a joke about something that stupid. Anyway, Cross is a detective on the tail of a serial killer called "Picasso" (Matthew Fox) who seems to be targeting a business man, working his way up the chain to him, so to speak.
Cross will attempt to catch him using either the power of his massive intellect, or psychic ability. It's kind of hard to tell which one of those he possesses based on what I saw. I guess it's not that important, since by the end he doesn't really use his powers of deduction/magic to solve anything related to actually catching Picasso. He just kind of picks up a gun and goes Charles Bronson on him after the whole thing becomes overtly personal. So whatever. It doesn't really lead to anything anyone else couldn't have done with basic investigative competence.
Ah yes. "Perry's Untouchables," for sure.
"Alex Cross" is not going to break any new boundaries in terms of police dramas featuring psychos. It's all quite stock in a "Red Dragon" meets "In The Line of Fire" way. That's not to say it's bad, it's just recycled. And PG-13. It's a movie about a serial killer that's rated PG-13. That's always a good sign. But hey, it's got Edward Burns, Jean Reno and John C. McGinley. Those are some nice grabs for the supporting cast at least.
You know, I will give Tyler Perry the slightest bit of credit for trying to expand a bit and do something other than playing an old crazy lady, but right from the get go there's a problem with him being in this, which even from the trailer is clearly evident. The problem is that there is no way in this bizarre, messed up world that a guy like Tyler Perry is suited to be an action movie lead.
Maybe if he were cast as one of the IT guys, or the police chief, or a sidekick or something else where he didn't have to shoot a gun or look intimidating or anything involving punching someone else in the face I could have bought it. But as it is, we're supposed to not only believe that this doughy lump of smug is a competent police officer, but that he can run down and take out a guy like Picasso in hand to hand combat, which he does during the film's ludicrous climatic fight scene. I feel it necessary to inform you that earlier in the movie we saw Picasso utterly DESTROY an MMA fighter nearly twice his size. Like, nearly to the point of possibly killing him. With his bare hands. And this miniature, chocolate flavored version of the Stay Puft Marshmallow man is supposed to beat this guy? Please.
Oh honey no, put it down. You're going to hurt yourself.
There's actually something funny that happens every time we are meant to buy Tyler Perry being a badass. Every single time he's shown throwing a punch, or shooting a gun, or anything involving something other than talking, the camera goes into seizure mode like it's inside a dryer on spin cycle. One could easily chalk that up to it being yet another film trying to make the action "more intense" by making sure we can't see a thing, but I'm sure the real reason was so that we wouldn't notice Tyler Perry having a heart attack every time he was forced to raise his fist and swing.
And as you could probably guess, the end fight between Cross and Picasso is filmed so wildly shaky and cut so spastic that it's almost impossible to tell that Matthew Fox is basically standing still waiting to be hit. That's a good thing in the same way that if I had my face melted off, I wouldn't be able to see how hideous I was since my eyes would be gone. It is so pathetic watching the editing try to salvage the action scenes when it's clear the lead actor probably couldn't even put bread in a toaster without needing an oxygen tank. It's like I'm watching a Segal movie by accident.
Matthew Fox is the one shining light that breaks through the haze of cliched plot and Perry's paunch, however. Good gravy, this guy was awesome in "Alex Cross." I've never been huge on Matthew Fox, and I'm still convinced he's a C+ actor at best, since his only got two modes: dour and smirk. But he is in the wrong movie here. He and his character are far too awesome for the likes of "Alex Cross." He needed to be going up against Karl Urban in another "Dredd" movie or in the next "Mission: Impossible" or something. The shenanigans he's pulling off are nearly Bond Villain-esque in their over-the-top nature, and it's by far and away the most entertaining thing going on here.
I would have finished watching "Lost" if Jack had been this awesome as opposed to irritating.
Matthew Fox does provide the only shocking moments in "Alex Cross," one of which occurs in a scene that's all over the trailer but goes down in a much darker way than one would usually expect a scene like that to resolve. The film gets credit for that, but the PG-13 nature of the movie means that both scenes, particularly the one in the trailer, feel a bit neutered. The second scene, which could have been really gruesome, isn't even shown except for a blurry picture of the aftermath sent via text. Must have been a hell of a scene. Glad they didn't show it.
Oh yeah. This guy has no chance against the hulking powerhouse that is the guy who plays Medea.
And I don't mean that unless a movie is graphic that it's no good, but when a person gets a hole blasted through their chest with a large caliber bullet and there's literally not a single drop of blood to be seen or even a hole in their shirt, it tends to undermine what just happened because we can tell that "Alex Cross" is made for the kiddies, and we can't have them seeing scary blood in a movie about a serial killer.
There was another thing that really irked me as well. This was Tyler Perry's mother-in-law they call "Nana-Mama" (groan) who, when Cross goes commando and suits up to take out this crazy assassin, attempts to convey the "message" of the film. This "message" is basically that by taking revenge on this guy, he becomes just as bad as him, and that he won't be able to live with himself if he goes out and gets him. And sure enough the last shot of the movie conveys that he may not be able to move on, and that there's a big cloud hanging over him for what he's done. And you know, that may have been a valid point in another film, but there's one little problem that makes it kind of stupid: He's a goddamn cop. It's his job to stop people like Picasso.
I just wanted to punch Nana-Mama in the face. Her self-righteous judgement on Cross when he goes out to stop a guy MURDERING PEOPLE like his profession requires came across as extremely preachy and insulting. And while it was nice to see Cross basically tell her to piss off, it's clear that we as the audience should be siding with her. You know what? I don't want the people trying to stop serial killers to have second thoughts about turning the other cheek. I want them to stop the serial killers before I get tortured to death. How about that?
"Sorry, folks. I'd uphold the law and protect the innocent and everything but...well...Nana Mama loves her some Jesus so...you know. I'll be in car."
Of course, the end of this movie makes Alex Cross out to be a complete and utter scumbag who definitely and very illegally overreaches not only his professional jurisdiction but also his character's sense of morals, but it's not really having anything to do with Picasso. That happens at the end when Jean Reno's character turns out to be behind the whole Picasso thing (it was so obvious from the beginning), and Cross essentially sells him out to a drug cartel after setting him up. So the Cartel grabs Jean Reno to take him away and kill him. Most likely in a very horrible fashion. Nice, Cross. Very professional. And unnecessary.
I don't understand why that moral grey area was thrown in there at the last minute, like they needed to artificially create a dilemma. Cross didn't have to do that. He could have gone about getting Jean Reno's character in a more official capacity. He didn't have to go all thug-justice on him, and there wasn't really a good reason why he did it that way. In fact, it would have made far more sense for both the story and character to do it in an official capacity, because that's what Cross would probably have done based on the very trite characterization I was given with this film. He's mad, yes, but he's a good cop. At least he was for 95% of the film.
Did you know that Idris Elba was originally going to be Alex Cross? That I could have bought. And not that I need a reason to dislike Tyler Perry, but come on. I could have been watching a good actor here. That's not helping much. On top of that and the fact that he took out Matthew Fox, the only decent character in this whole debacle, it's a wonder I even watched it all the way through to the end after Fox buys it with 15 minutes left to go. Who cares after that point? Then it really is a Tyler Perry movie, and screw that.
If you want a good laugh, check out Tyler Perry trying to be hardcore. It's pretty funny.
THE BOTTOM LINE - "Alex Cross" is a movie whose biggest problem is bad casting for the lead. If the story had been R rated with someone other than Tyler Perry, the combination of that and Matthew Fox could have made for a halfway enjoyable thriller. But as it stands, it's just kind of there and gone with no real redeeming qualities. Tyler Perry should stick to his schtick so I don't feel any inclination to suffer through another one of his performances.
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