Alex Cross
Metascore
30 out of 100

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 34 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 34
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 34
  3. Negative: 17 out of 34
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  1. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Sara Stewart
    Oct 19, 2012
    38
    Aside from these curious role reversals, though, Alex Cross is a mess. Drawing on every conceivable '80s B-movie action cliché and treating its beleaguered female characters like pieces of meat (literally, in one scene of butchery), director Rob Cohen squanders a surprisingly recognizable cast on a half-baked plot adapted from James Patterson's series of novels.
  2. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    Oct 18, 2012
    38
    Nothing works. Or some of it works, but that doesn't matter because what's working is so deeply, painfully boring.
  3. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Mike DAngelo
    Oct 17, 2012
    33
    Perry shifts into full-on badass mode... well, the best that can be said is that he's sincere. For all that, he's still less embarrassing than Lost's Matthew Fox, likewise cast against type as the film's sadistic villain.
  4. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Eric Hynes
    Oct 20, 2012
    30
    There's not a moment in Alex Cross that doesn't function splendidly as comedy. Which means that for all his cool-cat preening and heroic soul-searching, Tyler Perry must have felt right at home.
  5. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    Oct 20, 2012
    30
    What a whorish film this is: Even the serial killer lectures the detective.
  6. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    Oct 17, 2012
    30
    It's a courageous but misguided move on Perry's part; he has none of Freeman's soulful, nuanced subtlety, and watching him display the gamut of emotions called for in Marc Moss and Kerry Williamson's script is like watching the Hulk attempt Swan Lake.
  7. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Oct 20, 2012
    25
    In the face of such junk, the idea that Fox would proudly put himself on a punishing regime of severe diet and exercise to get prisoner-skinny-yet-crazy-muscled for the job of make-believe is vanity at best, obscenity at worst.
  8. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Adam Nayman
    Oct 18, 2012
    25
    Instead of playing the role in drag, the erstwhile Madea simply is a drag.
  9. Tampa Bay Times
    Reviewed by: Steve Persall
    Oct 18, 2012
    25
    Alex Cross is slipshod cinema hoping to capitalize on a star out of his orbit here.
  10. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    Reviewed by: Joe Williams
    Oct 18, 2012
    25
    Formulaic serial-killer crapola.
  11. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: Ben Kenigsberg
    Oct 20, 2012
    20
    In drag or out of it, the soft-spoken star has rarely been less convincing than when locking and loading from his home arsenal or dangling from a decaying Detroit edifice.
  12. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    Oct 18, 2012
    20
    A grim, dispiritingly stupid waste of time, energy, money and talent.
  13. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Betsy Sharkey
    Oct 18, 2012
    20
    The best of the Alex Cross mess suggests that as an actor, he has the talent to move beyond the world of Madea should he want to. He just needs to look for much better material.
  14. Variety
    Reviewed by: Peter Debruge
    Oct 15, 2012
    20
    The cross-dressing "Madea" star seems out of his depth playing the hard-boiled detective made famous by Morgan Freeman in "Along Came a Spider" and "Kiss the Girls." Even action helmer Rob Cohen ("The Fast and the Furious," "XXX") seems to be off his game here.
  15. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Marc Mohan
    Oct 18, 2012
    16
    The movie is stunningly perfunctory, soul-crushingly oblivious to its own lack of originality, and, to be blunt, just plain dumb.
  16. The Playlist
    Reviewed by: Drew Taylor
    Oct 17, 2012
    16
    Alex Cross is more boring than your average weeknight procedural, except much longer, dumber and more violent.
  17. Slant Magazine
    Reviewed by: Chris Cabin
    Oct 17, 2012
    12
    Expositional and often self-serious to the point of genuine awkwardness, the dialogue is never as haltingly unconvincing as when it's attempting to give some approximation of Alex Cross's essential looseness and good humor.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
4.7 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 53 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 22
  3. Negative: 8 out of 22
  1. Lynette
    9
    I do not know what those people are talking about or what movie they had watched, but Alex Cross was not the worst movie of this year. You didn't like the movie Alex Cross which was a really good thrill ride, but you like the movie that's my boy, oh how mind boggling. Argo didn't seem all that good, besides it was on the news 30 years ago. All you have to do is read a 30 year old newspaper about the story, hello!Those people do not know a really good movie if it fall right out of their ass wholes. This movie was very exciting and very thrilling. It is most certainly different from watching the same damn movie over and over. They make the same movie over and over and many people get sick and tire of seeing it. Paranormal activity is about the same as those other scary movies. About a hunted house and spooky ghost and scary monsters and people being hacked up to death and blood and body parts falling off. Alex Cross was a very thrill ride and very exciting movie. I think it was very exciting just like the book series. I really don't know what those people are talking about, because they weren't watching the same movie as I. I am so confused?… Full Review »
  2. Jraptor59
    0
    This one is bad. Don't think it has the class of the Morgan Freeman movies. Don't watch it. I rented it on Amazon and it was one of a handful of films that made me regret renting it within 5 minutes. It is shallow, cliche, pretentious. I had never seen Tyler Perry before and based on the trailers was willing to give this a chance. I regret that choice.… Full Review »
  3. cameronmorewood
    3
    Poorly acted, lazily written, and not really directed at all, Alex Cross is the most clichéd action movie of the year.
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