Alex Cross (2012)

Halfway through watching a shocking dull and vacant Tyler Perry sleepwalk his way through playing James Patterson’s famed detective “Alex Cross,” the actor who should be playing the role arrives for a cameo that kills. Giancarlo Esposito. You know his face. “Breaking Bad.” “Usual Suspects.” He scorches screen as a mob boss called on by Cross as the stalwart detective sinks to “Untouchables” methods to bag the psychotic assassin/kick boxer/artist (!!) who killed his wife. That’s the main plot, set up by a starved-looking Matthew Fox (“Lost”) as the thrice-talented loon slow-tortures and kills a woman and then goes gonzo across Detroit in a mysterious spree that leads to a massively unsurprising conspiracy of typical James Patterson pedigree. But forget the forgettable plot. Back to Perry. Love or hate his “Madea” films, he is undeniably entertaining, and can own a screen. Here, he’s outclassed by furniture. A stiff on moving legs, sans zombie makeup. Is he tired? Put off by the rough (but PG-13) material laid out by director Rob Cohen? I have no idea. “Cross” opens DOA, and save Esposito’s blip, stays a flatliner. D

Madea’s Family Reunion (2006)

Having finally watched Tyler Perry’s “Madea’s Family Reunion,” I’m left uncomfortably squirmy, as if I’ve read a popular novel, and just can’t grasp it. Correction: I grasp it alright, and I just want to forget it.

“Madea” follows a large African-American family from Atlanta, each person undergoing a challenge of some sort. I was fully game. But Perry – writer, director, producer and multi-star – has left me stone cold. He jumps from a scene where a rich banker (Blair Underwood) beats the shit out of his fiancée (Rochelle Ayets) to a hap-hap-happy scene with Perry himself in cheap granny drag, hamming it up as the matriarch Madea. It’s an ugly, mocking performance of women, and I could barely stomach this toxic mix of drama and comedy – I take the beating of women a bit more serious, I suppose. Perry? Hell if I know.

Perry then proceeds to fumble his way to a condescending grade-school church sermon, and then lands at a gaudy wedding that makes “The Phantom of the Opera” seem mundane. The acting is good, I adore Lynn Whitfield when she’s wicked, and Cicely Tyson and Maya Angelou are glorious angels on Earth. But, thanks, I’ll skip the next cook out with Madea. C-