3900th Review!! Alex Cross (2012)

“[Talking about Alex Cross] What do you think, we can fool him? This is a guy who can tell you had scrambled eggs for breakfast at a hundred yards. ” – Thomas Cane

Number of Times Seen – 2 (12 Dec 2012 and 21 Mar 2018)

Brief Synopsis – A detective investigating a murder matches wits with a devious hired killer.

My Take on it – This is by far the weakest of the films about Detective Alex Cross and thats a real shame.

Morgan Freeman played the character quite well and it was often felt that he embodied the character really well.

This film takes the role of a forensic detective and turns him into an action hero which doesn’t work as well for this character and his stories.

The switch to action thriller actually makes this film less interesting to follow than it should be.

Tyler Perry is quite miscast as Cross and I understand why they chose to go with a younger actor and make it feels like a prequel but it just doesn’t manage to work like most of James Patterson Cross novels do.

Matthew Fox is quite miscast here as the bad guy and it’s really difficult taking his character seriously no matter what he does.

The brightest star in this film is Edward Burns who is great in the sidekick role and turns out to be the most interesting and engaging character of the film even with his limited screen time.

It is now quite clear as to why they stopped making these films.

Hopefully, one day, someone will go back to the basic psychological thriller aspects of the novels when making a future adaptation of one of Cross’ adventures.

Bottom Line – Weakest of the Alex Cross films by far.  The attempt to make this an action thriller instead of a real psychological thriller is what makes this film less interesting to watch. Perry isn’t so great in the title role and the idea to make this feel like a prequel also doesn’t work well enough. Burns is always fun as the sidekick and he is the most interesting character of the film. Fox is miscast as a hired killer and it’s really hard to take his character seriously no matter what he does here.  Now I know why they never attempted to reignite this film series after this one.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Tyler Perry trained extensively in krav maga – the martial arts favored by the Israeli secret service. He said it was “the most ass-kicking workout” he’d ever experienced. (From IMDB)

Rating – Razzie Worthy (3/10)

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