(The girl in the purple dress later ditched her lame friend and hooked up with that charming redneck in the hunting vest at the afterparty.)
Warrior did its best to bring a thoughtful, somewhat realistic view of mixed martial arts to movie theaters — and it kind of tanked, which means that we’re back to depictions of MMA fighters as blood-thirsty psychopaths. So it goes with Alex Cross, which is slated to release on October 26th, and is based on the detective/psychologist character by novelist James Patterson. Here are the brass tacks, via our bros at FilmDrunk:
The story finds Cross on the hunt for Michael Sullivan (Matthew Fox), a ruthless assassin who murders the Washington DC detective’s wife. Sullivan, it turns out, is an MMA fighter, and Fox has transformed himself into something that would be right at home in a fantasy adventure or possibly Hurley from Lost’s nightmares.
Yeah, that veiny son-of-a-bitch you see above is Jack Shephard from Lost. We can only assume that Fox worked with nutritionist Mike Dolce and intensity coach Ben Foster to prepare for the role. On IMDb, the Fox character is listed as “Picasso,” which is probably a nickname referring to the fighter’s tendency to re-arrange faces. Huh. That’s actually kind of clever.
Cross will be played by Tyler “Madea“ Perry, who takes over the role from Morgan Freeman, who played Alex Cross in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. Good Lord, that has to be the biggest actor-downgrade since the Sean Connery/George Lazenby fiasco of 1969. Can’t wait for the scene where Perry dresses up as an old fat lady to gain the trust of a group of cut-throat MMA promoters.
Coincidentally, Alex Cross will hit theaters just two weeks after Here Comes the Boom, better know around here as Paul Blart: Cage Fighter, making October 2012 the most important month for MMA movies since Frankenhood was released on laserdisc.