In case you forgot, the reason we were all supposed to be tolerating the existance of Tyler Perry’s appallingly-awful cinematic fusions of Bible-Thumping moralizing, soap opera histrionics and Minstrel Show “comedy” was that he was at least giving boxoffice exposure to criminally-underutilized black actors who might be able to use his bafflingly-popular films as a springboard to bigger A-list roles.
Well, the good news is, someone has finally jumped from the Perryverse into a high-profile lead role in a major studio tentpole/franchise-starter. The bad news? That someone… is Tyler Perry; who stepped in to replace a departing Idris Elba in the Rob Cohen directed “Alex Cross,” intended to relaunch a new series of films based on the James Patterson detective novels that previously inspired “Kiss The Girls” and “Along Came a Spider.”
The film now has a trailer; and if you’ve just been dying to watch Madea’s male-half strap on guns and “badass-up” to do hilariously unconvincing battle with Matthew Fox as what appears to be an MMA-fighting ex-military hitman called “The Butcher”… you’re in luck:
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
Since when could Tyler Perry act. Apparently never.
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I saw this just before you posted this.
Let me state something first.
I am not a Tyler Perry hater, I don't really watch his movies, but I don't really dislike them either.
He is from my home town of New Orleans and thus a somewhat local success story, and that buys a LOT of good cred in my book.
HOWEVER:
Watching this trailer the entire thing that occurs to me is “This looks like it'd be a decent movie…IF they had cast someone who could pull off the title character.”
Seriously look at that trailer, there's the standard action trailer badass speech…. given with so little conviction and lack of actual badassness it sounds more like he's talking about his dinner.
I don't dislike Mr. Perry, I honestly think he's probably a good actor for some stuff…but action hero is NOT part of that stuff.
I honestly can't help but wonder how they didn't fire him on like day 2 of shooting and start calling tons of other black actors who could easily play this part.
Imagine that trailer, with, say, Idris Elba, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Terry Crews… or, just hell ANY OTHER BLACK ACTOR ON THE PLANET in that role & it will remarkably improve.
It's a damn shame, especially considering WHEN this movie bombs, the message Hollywood will take away isn't “Don't cast people who can't play action heroes as action heroes” it will be “Well, I guess the world doesn't want black action heroes”
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Holy shit, Doctor Cox is in this movie.
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With Elba it could have been all the fun of Luther, minus angst and awesome psycho sidekick, plus some budget and action.
Damn shame
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Oh, god, that weak attempt at a dubstep feel… The whole thing looks like a terrible knock-off of Manhunter or Red Dragon (take your pick), but then they put the Wubwubwub under it to make it sound edgy and hip and I barf a little inside…
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This is such good source material. I am depressed now, thanks.
Hey look that's Doctor Cox.
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So instead of John Luther we get this asshole. Perfect. Well, hopefully seeing Matthew Fox try out the villain thing will be mildly amusing.
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Holy crap that was hilariously bad. It's like Summit is dedicated to pumping out movies based on books with no thought whatsoever. Honestly this thing looked as silly as a Twilight trailer.
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Casting Matthew Fox as someone who hurts women is…grimly inspired casting?
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Cross was the last Patterson book I read, and I had to put it down half way through it when I realized I was reading a fucking BMW commercial (I wonder how much Patterson got paid to replace Cross' old Porsche?). His writing had become so formulaic, and he takes ZERO risk with his characters. Morgan Freeman was WAY too old for the part originally, so at least Perry fits better in that regard. I hope it does well, so maybe Patterson can retire.
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Tyler Perry doesn't remind me of Tyler Perry after say thirty seconds in or so. I mean sure it'd be better with a different actor, probably, but I don't think this looks that bad. It may just be the juxtaposition of reading all the comments before watching it, but I liked what I saw.
Matthew Fox looks great in his role, and yeah Idris or someone else would be better as Alex Cross but Tyler doesn't look as bad as you all think to me here. But we'll see.
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You replace Stringer Bell with this hack? I hate you, universe
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James Patterson's recent career is a pretty sorry affair. He used to be a fairly competent mystery writer with a spaced-out enough schedule to feel like a genuine event, but now, he just churns out several books a year of either completely unimaginative rehashes of his older material or the most stunningly awful children's (let's not pretend they're “young adult”) adventure books this side of Eragon. That he's only now super-popular (he made 84 million in 2011) speaks volumes of our culture and this movie just feels like a cash-in on that.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRfDgnapUAw
Tyler perry could make a million action movies but it still wouldn't redeem him for all the bull shit he put out.
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@Anon 12:40PM:
That is what happens when an author stops being an author and becomes a “brand.” I have no doubt that the vast majority of his new material is ghost-written, which is why he's able to crap out 2 books a year under his “name.”
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@Benne
Oh, it's way worse than that. Good authors can handle two a year… if they don't have to do magazine-whoring or desperate publicity stunting to survive. Patterson signed a 150 million dollar deal to produce 17 books in three years. Even people that write picture books for toddlers would balk at that schedule. Nearly all positive articles about him focus on his marketing tactics such as extensive peer group research, cover design, and book store placement without any real consideration towards the content (just get the confirmed ghostwriters to fill it up with sex and violence, the rubes will be satisfied). His approach is everything that's wrong with the book publishing industry today.
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