The trouble with book adaptations (Spoilers)
I'm beginning to wonder if any movie directors respect a bestselling author's material, enough to trust that it is indeed seaworthy: not some leaky vessel that needs patches and caulking here, whole planks ripped out and replaced there.
Re: Alex Cross...I'm really torn on this, because I love Morgan Freeman. He takes the "meaty" roles that Denzel Washington probably turns down because they're N. S. E. (not sexy enough.) But this is one instance where Denzel might have hewed to Patterson's character better. Alex Cross was supposed to be a wise and insightful shrink, yes. But he was also in the prime of early middle age, rigorously well-maintenanced (the book mentions him having washboard abs, etc.) Bless his patrician heart, but Freeman is well into his sixties, <i> and freely proclaims </i> that he is not the stuff romantic leads are made of.
This probably made it necessary to eliminate the subplot of Alex and Jezzie's ***TORRID*** sexual affair, and robs much of the story of its bite. They suffer through "jungle fever" -type prejudice from smug outsiders throughout the investigation, up to and including a burning cross on the lawn. The whole romantic conflict of interest also makes the betrayal hit REALLY hard at the end, when Cross realizes Jezzie is nothing but a cold-hearted opportunist who, along with her partnet/lover Devine, has played him every step of the way.
(Cross had also recently been made a widower, with two energetic---and still grieving---children. All of these traits affected his character. Yet in the movie we see 1.) a very much living wife and 2.) no kids?)
And the villain, Gary Soneji/Murphy. WOW, Hannibal Lechter would tip his hat to that complex monster...at least, in Patterson's book. Double lives, double faces. Up until the very end, you're left uncertain whether he has real Multiple Personality Disorder, or merely fakes it, so effectively he escapes the executioner's needle. (Yes, that's right, HE LIVES.)
In the movie you're left with the feeling Soneji would have let the little girl live, once his glory-lust was satisfied. Soneji in the book, never planned to let that child see the light of day.