Our Preview of This Week's New Releases (for Friday, October 19th)

Andrew: Hello readers! It's been a little busy for us this week so we apologize for the lack of new posts, but it's time for our weekly preview and you can be sure we're gonna get this one out today!

It's actually a bit of a slow weekend for new movies as we only see two wide releases with the fourth installment in the Paranormal Activity series and the new thriller Alex Cross, starring Tyler Perry (of Madea fame) in the title role.

Sarah, let's start with the one I know we're both going to see and that's Alex Cross. It's the third film to be adapted from James Patterson's Alex Cross novel series, which is a personal favorite of ours.

Sarah: I really have gotten into the Alex Cross series over the past couple of months! When I saw that they were turning it into a movie, I was pretty excited. But here's the thing...I'm really not a huge fan of who they got to play Alex. When I think of Tyler Perry I only think of a man in drag.

Official Trailer for Alex Cross

And now we find out that our beloved series is being totally butchered by taking place in DETROIT! What?! Did they not think Washington, D.C., the 16^th most dangerous city in the country according to Forbes, wasn't badass enough? Apparently not, because they moved it to Detroit, Forbes’ #1 most dangerous city in America.

A: I'm right with you on both aspects. This is my favorite book series and I love the character of Alex Cross. I was also excited that they were going to make another movie and that originally Idris Elba was cast in the role, which would have been AWESOME. But then he got replaced by Tyler Perry and that excitement dropped by 98%.

Then I find out they've taken the movie and made it a prequel of sorts with Cross being a Detroit police detective instead of the Washington PD/FBI profiler he is in the novels? That infuriates me, even if it DOES take place in Michigan. That's just not the character. I'm very upset by this.

S: If you're going to make a prequel then don't base it on an actual book. I'm upset that they decided to do it this way. I feel like if you haven't read any of the books, then you'll probably be fine with the movie. But even if you have just read one of them, I think you will be seriously disappointed.

Part of the reason I love the books so much is BECAUSE he's a profiler. And his trusty sidekick Sampson won't be there! I feel like we shouldn't even see this because it's such an affront to the actual series. 

A: I mean, to be fair the movie is an adaptation of the novel "Cross" (and for some reason they named it Alex Cross, which is a different book in the series) and you haven’t gotten to that one yet. The book this is based on DOES start off with giving some back story to our hero. BUT IT'S NOT IN DETROIT.

The city of Washington, D.C. plays a huge part into this character. Moving him takes a lot of that out, and if they plan to make a series out of it, the FBI and U.S. government plays a huge part as well. Just an all-around terrible decision if you ask me.

Now, one thing I do like about what they did with this movie (as far as I can tell) is they cast Matthew Fox (Lost) as the antagonist, a serial killer called The Butcher. And he looks RIPPED in it. I just hope it doesn't come off as hokey and instead comes off as scary. That's a concern for me because this new movie is rated PG-13 whereas the Morgan Freeman ones were R, as well they should be because of the content matter.

S: Yeah, there is a lot about this movie concerns me. I mean, I still want to see it but only because of Fox's character.

A: Another thing that gives me pause? It's directed by Rob Cohen, who did The Fast and The Furious, xXx, and Stealth. Ugh. Only one of those was even remotely enjoyable and even then it's not very good. 

S: Gross. Okay, so the next (and really only other movie that comes out this weekend) is Paranomal Activity 4. We all know this is totally not up my alley. Andrew was supposed to see this one tonight before it goes wide on Friday, but SOMEBODY forgot to print out his tickets before he left work.

Anyways, when the first one came out my roommates went out to see it and scared them like crazy! And because of the success of the original they have decided to go the Saw route and release a new one every year. I’m personally not a fan when movies do that, but what do you think Andrew?

Official Trailer for Paranormal Activity 4

A: I'm pretty excited to see the movie because I'm a fan of this series. I thoroughly enjoyed the first one, was pleasantly surprised that the second one improved upon the original in both its acting and some of the ways they shot it, and the third one might be the best of the series because of the look, some great decisions on how to ramp up the tension (that camera on the oscillating fan was genius), and even though the ending was a bit weird it gave the whole series an idea of why these things were happening.

So I'm curious to see where they go now that they've brought the series back to present day(-ish). I like the idea of using web cams and security cams, and I like that they've brought adult Katie back in to main focus of the series. PA4 was directed by the same duo that directed PA3, Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, and it was co-written by Christopher Landon, who's co-written all but the original one. So he should know the story better than most and I'm looking forward to where they'll take the series.

S: Well I have absolutely no desire to see this one. So when you see it, we will of course be doing an interview type review. It will be interesting to see how you think this one stacks up to the others.

A: Just from the trailer alone it seems to have the look and feel of the rest of the series, and I’m interested to see where they go after bringing Katie back and now that her nephew is a little bit older. Should be interesting!

S: Okay readers, that does it for this week's preview! We apologize for it only being two movies deep, but if The Sessions had come to a theatre near us we would've previewed that, too. When it does we'll preview it, especially since it looks to be garnering some Oscar buzz!

A: Absolutely! So be on the lookout for our reviews of Alex Cross and Paranormal Activity 4 sometime this weekend, and because I wasn’t able to make tonight’s screening of PA4, leaving a hole in our programming tomorrow, I’ll be posting a special treat – my term paper from the Modern Horror Films class I took in college about John Carpenter’s Halloween. Should be fun!