The trailer for Alex
Cross has finally arrived. Skeptics will
now chime en masse about their fears having been confirmed. That is understandable, to a degree. As thrillers go, it looks like a fairly
standard stuff. All the tropes and
trappings are clearly in place. It isn’t
enough for the villain to simply be psychotic and murderous, he must be eccentrically
and/or perfectly so. The character of Michael
"The Butcher" Sullivan, played by Matthew Fox, is an MMA fighter with
Special Forces training. With that kind
of resume, he might as well be a super villain.
Mr. Cross has no such attributes.
He’s simply an exceptional psychologist/detective. The more I think about, the more I see parallels
to one of this summer’s most anticipated releases: The Dark Knight Rises. Think
about it: a super detective faces off against a villainous bodybuilder who
means to destroy all that he holds dear.
Moot observations aside, does Alex Cross look like it’s worth seeing? I suspect many will say no based the presence
of Tyler Perry alone. Again, I can
understand why. In its opening moments,
the trailer almost looks like it could be for one of Perry’s more “respectable”
films (IE the ones not featuring Madea).
Things change a bit after the halfway mark, when Mr. Perry suddenly goes
all Johnny Rambo. He’s shown sawing the
barrel off of a pump action shotgun and stockpiling various weapons in
preparation for battle. He then utters a
line that that seals the deal for me: “I will meet his soul at the gates of
Hell before I let him take a person that I love from me.” Yes, it’s cheesy. Yes, it’s cliché. Yes, I still like it. I’ve never had much of a problem with Tyler
as an actor. As long as he’s not wearing
a dress (Or sitting in the director’s chair, or writing the script), he’s
actually quite serviceable. If Alex Cross turns out to be a debacle, it
probably won’t be his fault. Well, not
all his fault, anyway.
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