For the record, it's English. I was born in Tilbury, Essex, made temporarily 
American citizen?"
For mainstream audiences, Tyler Perry’s amazing success as a writer, producer, director and actor exits in a parallel cinematic world. When a film comes from the Perry factory he never allows screenings for reviewers. As a result, it’s Perry’s direct fan club that see his films, and that’s it. Regular movie-goers are generally unaware.
In Alex Cross, the new crime thriller adapted from the novels of James Patterson, Perry gets his chance to finally be seen out of his Madea costume. He takes over where Morgan Freeman left off with a detective character last seen in Along Comes A Spider and Kiss The Girls, and the end result is mixed at best.
The plot surrounds the exploits of a sadistic serial killer called Picasso (a lean and almost demented looking Mathew Fox) and the attempts by
Picasso’s style is to render his victim paralyzed by injecting a drug that completely relaxes the body but allows all senses to continue operating. “Inflicting pain is part of my true calling,” he states knowing that his victim can feel every sensation he forces upon them. The sadist relishes every second of what he’s doing and savors the look of fear that his sufferers display through their terrified eyes, the only part of their body that can express any sense of life.
Cross is also a psychologist giving him a kind of Sherlock Holmes ability to look at a crime scene and immediately state what happened, when and how. “Just once I’d like you to get something wrong,” his partner tells him, then adds, “This is beginning to get irritating.” Ed Burns, whose high-pitched, husky voice always seems to be on the edge of either cracking or disappearing altogether, can play the side-kick well, but here there’s a definite lack of chemistry between him and Perry that slows the proceedings down. They never seem right together - at times you get the impression that Burns’ character doesn’t even like his partner - and I fear the problem of the pairing has less to do with Burns and more to do with Perry’s portrayal of the detective.
The fact that Tyler Perry has already proven himself to be a virtual one man movie industry over and over again with his Madea dramadies proves how talented the man can be, but playing himself, or rather an extension of himself without the wigs and old lady costumes, it doesn’t work as well. He’s a large man with an imposing frame, but he seems unable to give his character any weight. Without that on-screen partnership working with Burns, Cross appears to be on his own, and he doesn’t have the gravitas to hold it together.
The action sequences in Alex Cross are perfectly fine. They’re well designed and effectively executed, plus having the climactic chase and shoot out take place in an old music hall theatre converted into a parking lot is an unusual and visually striking location to use, but the overall plot and detective work seems no more involving than a regular episode of a TV show, despite its adaptation from a successful James Patterson novel.
