Stream On: the reincarnation of Alex Cross
Aldis Hodge steps up to portray the fictional detective for Amazon Prime Video.
James Patterson’s fictional detective Alex Cross has been portrayed, notably, by Morgan Freeman (Glory) in Kiss the Girls (1997) and Along Came a Spider (2001); and less notably, by Tyler Perry in Alex Cross (2012). Now Aldis Hodge (Leverage) steps up, for Amazon Prime Video’s series Cross.
/Streaming /Amazon /🍅76%🍿65% /Trailer /2024 /TVMA
Time for a real reboot! Tyler Perry’s Alex Cross was supposed to be a reboot, but it was still a movie, set in the same time frame as Morgan Freeman’s original films. Cross is a TV series (my choice for any kind of real story/character development), and it’s set in the present. The series’ Alex Cross is a modern young man (Morgan Freeman, and by extension the Alex Cross of the first films, was born in 1937) and charismatic Aldis Hodge (b. 1986) is a fine choice for a shot at playing him. With the change in period and medium, he doesn’t even need to try to fill Freeman’s shoes, an impossible task (which is probably what defeated the usually popular Tyler Perry).
The scripts are more inspired by Patterson’s books than based on any, although there are apparently Easter eggs that recall the novels. The credits say “based upon characters created by James Patterson,” which is encouraging—if you don’t care for Patterson, bless his heart!
In fact, the characters—and situations—are treated with more depth than in the novels and previous movies. Here, they’re awash in the Black experience; premium TV has raised the bar on storytelling, and showrunner and writer Ben Watkins (Burn Notice) rises to the challenge, as do the other writers from the first season.
The setting is specifically modern enough that a character in a school is chastised for wearing ‘Washington Redskins’ paraphernalia—but Alex Cross is a young man. And still, timeless Marvin Gaye is on the soundtrack? It’s all good!
KISS THE GIRLS / ALONG CAME A SPIDER
/Amazon /🍅34%🍿62%, 🍅32%🍿53% /1997, 2001 /R
Morgan Freeman “projects a kindness, patience and canny intelligence that cut against [Kiss the Girls]’ fast pace and pumped-up shock effects. His performance is so measured it makes you want to believe in the movie much more than its gimmicky jerry-rigged plot ever permits” So Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times in 1997.
Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times called Along Came a Spider an “overplotted, hollow thriller, which crams in so much exposition that characters speak in fetid hunks for what seems like minutes at a time ... But Spider couldn't be better served than it is by Mr. Freeman, whose prickly smarts and silken impatience bring believability to a classless, underdeveloped thriller ... Still, he is wasted in this impersonal, almost inept thriller.”
There was something off with a lot of these films from the ’nineties (which include the early 2000’s). Intrusive scoring, a too-snappy note in the writing, hackneyed direction with the feel of a TV movie, and Seinfeld extras in small parts. But the poor writing (Patterson apparently was a co-writer of the Spider screenplay in an attempt to redeem himself from the unpopular Kiss the Girls—that didn’t work!) can’t stand up to Morgan Freeman’s gravitas: When he is forced to repeat a bad line, he redeems it.
So it seems only Freeman fans need apply to these first two films—but there’s plenty there for them. The Rotten Tomatoes critics registered positive reviews only in the low 30%’s, and audiences didn’t care for the films much more. But Tyler Perry’s film scored even less: only 11% of professional critics and 47% of audiences enjoyed it.
Sources include Wikipedia (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License); Screen Rant
Pete Hummers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to earn fees by linking Amazon.com and affiliate sites. This adds nothing to Amazon's prices. This column originally appeared on The Outer Banks Voice.