Alex Cross 2012

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: The movie is ugly in spirit and looks. All Alex Cross spiked was my appreciation for Morgan Freeman, the original cinematic Alex Cross. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: Somebody got it wrong. A lot of people got it wrong. And the result is one of the most ridiculous, laughable ... Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: A grim, dispiritingly stupid waste of time, energy, money and talent ... Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: The opening scene of "Alex Cross" serves notice of what's to come by taking us down into a Detroit sewer. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: "Alex Cross" is a grim yet silly piece of work, even as serial-killer thrillers go. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: It's downright painful to watch Perry struggle to take over James Patterson's forensic-psychologist hero Alex Cross ... Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: Picture Alan Alda in the title role of "Dirty Harry," and you have a good idea why Tyler Perry playing a hard-edged cop in "Alex Cross" doesn't work. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: If I hadn't had to stay awake, I would have slept though the whole thing. At home. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Cliched, improbable, and frequently risible. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The closer Cohen rams the camera to his pummeling actors, the more you don't know what's actually transpiring. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: For a franchise with an off-the-charts nuanced thinker as its protagonist, Alex Cross isn't very smart. Read more

Adam Graham, Detroit News: There's still a marketplace for a smart, well-crafted cat-and-mouse thriller. But "Alex Cross" isn't it. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: So cloddish, slapdash, gracelessly written, and visually fugly that it's difficult to distinguish Perry's limitations in the role from those of the whole unpleasant enterprise. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: Perry is no more out of his depth here than anyone else in the cast. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: You almost feel sorry for Tyler Perry, stepping out of his own universe for the first time to try to expand his range and finding himself in something as thoroughly dismal as Alex Cross. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: [Cross] has a really bad temper, really big guns and really bad dialogue. He will use all of them excessively if pushed. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: It feels almost cruel to laugh at such a blindly stumbling, dunderheaded action-thriller, but you won't be able to help it. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Perry's supposed to be its center. And as an actor - certainly as a movie star - he's absolutely nowhere to be found. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: As goofy as it is gruesome. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Perry is a likable presence, but the movie around him is such a mess that he never gets to prove his potential. Read more

Sara Stewart, New York Post: Cohen squanders a surprisingly recognizable cast on a half-baked plot adapted from James Patterson's series of novels. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Cohen's resume argues that he's a better action director than this; the laziness is inexcusable. The denouement is easily decoded and suitably cheesy. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: 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. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: "Alex Cross" is a good example of what a seriously talented director can do with a heaping pile of garbage. Read more

David Germain, Associated Press: Casting Perry as Cross was a bad idea, though it's not necessarily the worst in a movie built on bad ideas. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: From its cliche opening -- an irrelevant gun battle and chase -- to its derivative climax, this is a film with decades of dust on it. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Formulaic serial-killer crapola ... Read more

Adam Nayman, Globe and Mail: Stripped down to his undershirt or brandishing an assault rifle, Perry looks both incongruous and ridiculous - an icon out of water. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Tyler Perry finds it easier to step out of Madea's dress than into Morgan Freeman's shoes in the thriller Alex Cross, a trite attempt at franchise building. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: If you've seen Tyler Perry's Good Deeds or Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Too, you know that a non-Madea Perry barely registers on the screen. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, Time Out: [Perry] has rarely been less convincing than when locking and loading from his home arsenal or dangling from a decaying Detroit edifice. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Tyler Perry should not give up his day job. At least not until he chooses better dramatic vehicles for branching out. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: The director acquits himself on the action front, but makes the simple procedural elements feel wooden and melodramatic, particularly in sappy home-life scenes. Read more

Eric Hynes, Village Voice: A strong candidate for dumbest film of the year ... Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Alex Cross is coarse, punishing, and, in all the ways that matter, conscienceless ... Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: The first thing you'll want to know about "Alex Cross" is: Can Tyler Perry carry it off? The answer is: Sort of, but not really. Read more