Following the first set of images from a month or so ago, here's the first full trailer for **Alex Cross, the detective thriller starring Tyler Perry and Matthew Fox, based on the bestselling novels by James Patterson.
How's it looking? Kind of ridiculous, but actually not bad. We begin with John C. "Dr Cox" McGinley informing our man Perry that he has a gruesome crime scene to hand, and we're quickly introduced to Fox's mad-dog killer, an ex-military special forces guy "fascinated by pain", fond of a pair of pliers and handy with a sniper rifle and a rocket launcher. There's a bit of underground boxing, some running through what looks like a sewer tunnel, SWAT teams, helicopters, explosions... It's directed by Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious) who has a handle on that kind of mayhem.
As we said when we saw the first pictures, the stand-up-and-take-notice bit of all this is Fox, who has utterly transformed himself for this role, and looks really kinda scary. "Inflicting pain is a crucial part of my true calling," he tells Perry. "You are sick and twisted", Perry says. Well duh. Props too to Perry, however, sinking his teeth into a straight role after half a dozen movies in drag as an old lady.
Given the rate at which James Patterson's novels are published (several a year, although he juggles his core set of books with "co-written" franchises), not to mention their enormous popularity, it's incredible that so few have made it to the screen. Aside from a couple of TV movies, this is the first Patterson project we've seen since Morgan Freeman starred as Cross in 1997's Kiss the Girls and its 2001 follow-up Along Came a Spider.
Is Alex Cross the shot in the arm the series needs? We'll find out when it's released in the UK on November 30.