Film Review: Alex Cross

Ed Gibbs

Alex Cross

Director: Rob Cohen

Starring: Tyler Perry, Matthew Fox, Edward Burns, Jean Reno

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James Patterson's detective novels may be bestsellers, but they haven't enjoyed a smooth transition to the big screen. Two previous adaptations, 1997's Along Came a Spider and 2001's Kiss the Girls, were fronted by the stately Morgan Freeman, but neither proved particularly successful. This fresh stab, rather bizarrely, opts for a younger, agitated Cross, in the form of the entertainment powerhouse Perry. Complete with standard-issue moustache, Perry's Cross is one you wouldn't want to agitate unless you're a psycho going by the name of Picasso (Fox). The director Cohen (The Fast and the Furious, Stealth) mines his Detroit setting to a point but, like the script, it feels too cliched to be of any lasting import. Late-night TV fodder for insomniacs, perhaps, nothing more.

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