If you've been super excited for the new Alex Cross movie, I'm gonna get it over with and bust your bubble right now: it's supposed to be pretty terrible.
To be honest, what were we (fans of James Patterson and/or the films Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider), really expecting? In the role of Alex Cross, they have replaced the world class Morgan Freeman with Tyler Perry, a guy best known for dressing up in drag as an old woman and directing himself in a string of mediocre family comedies, the "Madea" series. For a director, they brought in Rob Cohen, who was behind The Fast and the Furious, XXX, and Dragonheart. Enough said.
I must have been delusional when I was hoping that this was going to be a respectable adaptation of a really good book. The most consistent point made by the top critics about this movie is that despite tons of cliche action sequences, it is still very boring. Most critics hated it. I am depressed. Here are the reviews:
Loved It
To my knowledge, no critics loved this movie. If you find an extremely positive review, please post a link in the comments section below.
Thought It Was Okay
Roger Ebert - Chicago Sun-Times
Score: 2 out of 4 stars
Excerpt: The direction by Rob Cohen is so careless that the film's climax is set up by a car crash that, if I am not mistaken, is completely coincidental. A hand-to-hand struggle between cop and killer is shot in Queasycam so murky, it's impossible to follow. The Detroit locations, such as the old Michigan Theater, are effective unless you notice some of the exteriors show Cleveland. (I've been to downtown Detroit, and Senator, this isn't Detroit.)
Michael O'Sullivan - Washington Post
Score: 2 out of 4 stars
Excerpt: The director of “The Fast and the Furious” and “XXX” leaves his bloody prints all over the place, indelibly. Freeman would likely not have fared much better than Perry does here, considering the unsubtle material that the movie’s cast has to work with.
Claudia Puig- USA Today
Score: 2 out of 4 stars
Excerpt: While the action is slack and uninvolving and the look of the film is grubby, it's the rote tale of Alex Cross vs. the artistic serial killer that most disappoints. For a far better time: Turn on the TV and watch an old episode of Bones.
Hated It
Stephen Witty - Newark Star-Ledger
Score: 1 out of 4 stars
Excerpt: So we have a film that is crammed full of clichés (the tough-talking police chief, the snobbish German billionaire, the dragon-lady temptress) and stuffed full of over-the-top action (slam-bam car chases, things blowing up and plenty of creepy violence against women). And yet the whole thing remains strangely empty.
Manohla Dargis - New York Times
Score: 1 out of 5 stars
Excerpt: The ineptitude of “Alex Cross” can’t be pinned only on Mr. Perry. He’s a likable screen presence, even when not wearing Madea’s wig and bosomy padding. But he doesn’t have the skill that can lift a performance up, up and away from the substandard movie surrounding it, one of Mr. Freeman’s enduring, oft-tapped talents.
Betsy Sharkey - LA Times
Score: 1 out of 5 stars
Excerpt: There are bursts of decently executed action — one long and bruising battle in an old Detroit building is kind of cool — but not nearly enough to keep the adrenaline pumping. The emotional pacing is even more problematic.
Wesley Morris - Boston Globe
Score: 1.5 out of 4 stars
Excerpt: Some movies make it to theaters, and you don’t know why. Nothing works. Or some of it works, but that doesn’t matter because what’s working is so deeply, painfully boring. “Alex Cross” is that kind of movie. If I hadn’t had to stay awake, I would have slept though the whole thing.
Colin Covert - Minneapolis Star Tribune
Score: 0.5 out of 4 stars
Excerpt: It's a Hollywood truism that nobody sets out to make a bad movie, but how else to explain a debacle like "Alex Cross"? This overwrought, oppressively violent police thriller has not got an original bone in its empty little head. From its cliché opening -- an irrelevant gun battle and chase -- to its derivative climax, this is a film with decades of dust on it.
David Germain - Associated Press
Score: 1.5 out of 4 stars
Excerpt: James Patterson titled his 12th Alex Cross crime novel simply "Cross." The filmmakers who adapted it expanded the title to "Alex Cross." They might as well have gone for broke and called it "Tyler Perry's Madea's Stab at Expanding Her-His Hollywood Marketability as James Patterson's Alex Cross."
Glenn Kenny -MSN Movies
Score: 1 out of 5 stars
Excerpt: The movie's complete lack of scares and suspense derive from many factors, including a lot of shilly-shallying no doubt designed to preserve a PG-13 MPAA rating. But that's not the only thing. Directed by Rob Cohen, the movie's whole atmosphere is so third-hand and chintzy that the standard comparisons that come to mind (to a Lifetime movie, say) simply won't do.
Wikian Reviews
Please write your full review in the comments section below: