Alex Cross is a reboot of the film franchise based on James Patterson’s novel series featuring the titular detective Cross – a character who has already been portrayed onscreen by Morgan Freeman in films like Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. The idea was to take the story back to the earlier days of Cross, casting a younger face to portray the younger version of the detective. For a moment there, Luther and Prometheus star Idris Elba was the man to take up the mantle – before the role was passed to writer/director/producer/mogul Tyler Perry.
Fan reaction has teetered between skepticism and disappointment, with many people still pining for Elba. But with today’s Alex Cross trailer, Perry will get his first chance to turn the tide of fan opinion to his side.
…though that might not be an accomplishment this first trailer can claim. The two biggest takeaways (for me at least) are:
- Lost star Matthew Fox looks crazy as the serial killer/sadist, Picasso. And not in a good way.
- Tyler Perry’s speech about ‘Meeting [Picasso's] soul at the gates of hell,’ just sounds strange coming out of the mouth of Tyler Perry. Oddly enough, it would sound much better coming from Madea.
Matthew Fox in 'Alex Cross'
Director Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious, xXx) is directing the film, and on the whole, it looks like a standard action/thriller – featuring a crazy skinny Matthew Fox. However, considering the quality of Kiss the Girls (and to lesser extent, Along Came a Spider), a “standard action/thriller” is something of a letdown.
The previous Cross films were bolstered by the acting talent of Morgan Freeman, who crafted a wise and cunning detective (as only he can). Perry yells a lot, and runs a lot, and his Cross does a lot of a action stunts… which pretty much puts him in league with a dozen other action movie hero cop detectives, rather than being the distinguished and unique Cross of the Freeman era. But hey, if it worked for Sherlock Holmes…
CLICK FOR FULL SIZE
Alex Cross will be in theaters on October 19, 2012.
Source: Amazon
Ryan Reynolds Drops Out of 'Highlander' Reboot 
No Loki in 'Avengers 2' 
'Man of Steel' Director & Writer on What Has to Happen in 'Man of Steel 2' 
'Man of Steel' Ending Controversy 
Perry seems to be a bit wooden and missing some spark or clever twinkle that other actors have….but I will give this a try….I dont remember Cross going hand to hand/one on one with military/ex-special forces in any of the novels…….
Are we all watching the same trailer? How does anyone think that Tyler Perry looks right for this role?
Sure, if this was a straight-to-DVD StevenSeagalapalooza then Yeah, it looks good, but this is a AAA franchise like Bourne, Bond, and Fast/Furious, and the acting by Perry looks so wooden…Hell, Madea has better acting from Perry than this movie… and Pg-13??
Pg-13? Is Matthew Fox gonna bully Perry on FB??
This is bargain basement Red Box fare at its best.
Evryone wants the book to be followed to e letter, movies aint made that way, and who has forgotten idris elba in ghost rider, that was terrible as brandon routh in dylan dog, ok, so I’ll rather give perry a chance, and looks good in it to me
It’s not that we want the book to be followed to the letter,just don’t act like it never happened.The whole appeal of Alex Cross is his psychology.He does actual detective work.And with this book the bad guy was a smart,prominent guy…pretty much the last man you’d expect to commit such gruesome murders.Now it’s just your regular summer popcorn movie with the cliche “ex-military,physically imposing obvious looking” bad guy
Easily this year’s “Abduction.”
Wow–Perry is awful
Not familiar with the books, but this looks pretty good. I’m sure Idris Elba would have been great, but let’s give Perry a chance. Maybe he can actually be a good action/thriller star.