Walking into ‘Alex Cross’, I already knew that it would be a dumb thriller with a one-dimensional hero and villain, a clichéd and cheese-filled plot, and lots of mild violence and action. Yet I didn’t expect such a joyless brain-dead borefest.

You wouldn’t know it unless you read the book or someone told you, but ‘Alex Cross’ lies within the story/world of ‘Kiss the Girls’ and ‘Along Came a Spider’. Tyler Perry plays the younger, fatter version of Morgan Freeman’s character, double-prefixed Detective Doctor Alex Cross. This doctor of psychology is one Detroit’s finest detectives. At times, he’s more like a paranormal profiler than a cop. Cross’ perfect world is about to come crashing down as he kicks-off a manhunt against a grisly assassin (Matthew Fox).

Since Cross is freakishly intelligent, he immediately deciphers the assassin’s motive and cock-blocks him on his next hit. In the process, the assassin learns the identities of Cross and his team, and turns his psychotic sights on the detectives. A two-way trail of bloody revenge ensues.

The picture that I’ve just painted probably makes ‘Alex Cross’ sound much better than it is. In reality, the movie is plotless, and slowly meanders around without a goal or end in sight

I’ve never seen Tyler Perry’s ‘Madea’ films because one has yet to be screened for press in Salt Lake City, but I’d rather watch one of those than ‘Alex Cross’. Perry’s stereotypical, fat-suit comedy can’t be any worse than the drama and action that he attempts here. As a die-hard ‘Lost’ fan, I get a kick out of seeing that show’s actors on the big screen, but Fox’s caricature of a villain is annoying.

The icing on this crap cake is the fact that it’s been neutered for PG-13. The story content, visual imagery and violence alone should warrant an R, but the film has been poorly edited down to a PG-13. One scene in particular features Fox dubbed over by someone whose voice doesn’t resemble his in the slightest.

Having only seen Tyler Perry in his cameo in ‘Star Trek’, I sure as hell want nothing to do with him as a dramatic actor. As of now, ‘Alex Cross’ the second-worst movie of 2012, after ‘Project X‘. And it comes second only because the movie has a few parts so absurd and silly that I actually laughed.

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