Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Many video game enthusiasts were looking forward to the movie adaptation of the "Tomb Raider" game series. When "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" was finally released, not all of them were satisfied. But the movie does have its good points. Angelina Jolie takes the lead as Lara Croft, the famed archaeologist/adventurer, woman warrior and gamer's dream girl. She plays the role as if she were meant to be Lara Croft. The movie also boasts some very good visual effects and exciting action. The plot does leave a bit to be desired, though. The ancients may have had deep knowledge about the universe and the planets, but the concept with the planetary alignment was just barely plausible. But, really, with movies like this, it's all about explosions and the star's body. Lara Croft's game might not be for everybody, and the same goes for the movie.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is unashamedly a product of its time which lends it a lot of charm. The nonsense treasure hunting plot stands out more than usual in these types of films but it's a fun time buoyed by the movie star carrying it and on stronger footing than most video game adaptations thanks to the framework of the films it's borrowing from.

Angelina Jolie is perfectly cast as the titular Tomb Raider, exuding elegant confidence effortlessly with a faultless accent. Daniel Craig, on the other hand, has a weird American accent and plenty of pre-Bond charm so he can still be a solid rival/love interest. Ian Glen knows how to make a one-note villain work, even when he's given nothing.

Simon West directs a globetrotting action film that moves quickly with acrobatic action at its strongest when at its most practical because the CGI is pretty rough and it increases in frequency as it goes along. With plenty of previous experience in action, he was a good choice for this. Graeme Revell's techno club anthem of a score really knows how to set the tone straight away.

Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie), a wealthy adventurer who seeks after lost artifacts for the sheer thrill finds a mysterious clock hidden in her family home that activates at the same time as an upcoming alignment of the nine planets. Lara discovers the clock hides a special key that will lead whoever holds it to the lost artifact the Pyramid of Light which is said to have the ability to control the flow of time. Meanwhile, the Illuminati is also seeking the Pyramid of Light with Manfred Powell (Iain Glen) and Lara's rival tomb raider Alex West (Daniel Craig) trying to stay one step ahead of Lara.

Released in 1996, Tomb Raider developed by Toby Gard and Core Design became one of the defining video game franchises of the 3D era of video games with the series laying the foundation for other third person platforming games with influences seen even to this day with the likes of Uncharted franchise. Of particular novelty for the series was in its central character Lara Croft who originally intended as a male character was changed as to not invite comparisons to the Indiana Jones franchise. Lara Croft's popularity remains strong to this day with the character's unique look recognized even outside the gaming community and serving as the cornerstone of a franchise that encompasses not only the games, but also comics, action figures, and an upcoming anime series. Development on a Tomb Raider movie had begun in fits and starts through the 90s with drafts by Mortal kombat: Annihilation's Brent V. Friedman and the Street Fighter movie's Steven E. De Souza rejected for one reason or another, and the casting of Angelina Jolie met with mixed responses among audiences. Despite this, the movie became the highest grossing movie based on a video game at the time as well as the highest grossing female fronted action film. While Critical reception tended to skew negative (with the exception of Roger Ebert) the movie received an "okay" response from audiences, and while not anything mind blowing Lara Croft: Tomb Raider does capture the essence of adventure and silliness that endear the games and character to audiences.

Simon West brings his visceral sense of style and intensity to the film that he brought to Con Air and that style is well complimented by the performance by Jolie as Croft who gives us a "devil may care" protagonist who lives for sheer thrills and danger. It's not the most deep of performances, but considering the source material Jolie manages to capture the character's core appeal to a "T" both in terms of personality and the action beats. While the opening "training scene" with Lara squaring off against a killer robot made by her home techie, Bryce, goes a bit further from reality than it should, the other major action sequences are well done with the siege of Lara's manor by Illuminati mercenaries done with some creative usage of bungee cables and household items and the two major tomb sequences in Cambodia and Siberia have strong production design and incorporate some strong "platforming" elements reminiscent of the games without feeling bogged down by them. Daniel Craig I also rather enjoyed as Lara's rival/love interest, Alex Wes, even if Craig adopting an American accent in place of his British one was a little eyebrow raising.

While the adventure elements work well with exotic locales and imposing tombs, other story beats don't feel as strong as they should. Iain Glen serves as our main villain Powell, and while he does okay in the role the villain really never rises above much more than an obstacle (even when it's revealed his connection to Lara's father) with him basically being the Illuminati's glorified errand boy who wants to sit in "the big chair". I feel like maybe if the characters of West and Powell were combined into a singular antagonist we'd probably have a much stronger villain. But the biggest element that doesn't work is Jolie's real life father, Jon Voight playing Lara's father Richard Croft. On paper this SHOULD work as a way of capturing that "father/daughter" dynamic the movie wants to evoke, but not only is Voight's performance as Richard rather underwhelming as he gives a very sleepy performance, but when Jolie and Voight do eventually appear together it plays very distant and awkward and not like a heartfelt family reunion. When you have your "big emotional moment" I shouldn't be noting that Voight had better chemistry with Nicolas Cage playing his son in National Treasure than he has with his real life daughter.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider given the time this was made was probably the most faithful adaptation of the franchise and character we could expect. With tight direction, a large budget, and an enjoyable performance by Jolie as Croft, the movie is nonsense, but it's entertaining nonsense.

Directed by Simon West and co-written by Mike Werb, Sara Cooper, and Michael Colleary, Tomb Raider is an adaptation of the video game franchise.

The story follows a very wealthy, but also incredibly skilled archaeologist, Lara Croft, as she goes after an ancient artifact that has the ability to control time during the planetary alignment. However, she is also competing for the artifact with another wealthy individual, Manfred Powell, who is the leader of a group, who plans to use the artifact for their own evil doings. However, reluctantly, they must join together to get the complete artifact.

By this point in time, video game adaptations were OK to downright terrible. Only one movie had gone above that before this point and that was Mortal Kombat, which wasn't great but much better than anything else.

Tomb Raider was the first adaptation that I remember a studio investing a big budget towards, and that was exciting to all of us who played the games.

With that said, the plot is not great. One of the issues with having three writers is that multiple ideas tend to get thrown in and that is very evident here. It's a mess. The Triangle artifact plot is definitely in line with the games, but the explanation on what it does and how to use it is all over the place. They have multiple characters in multiple scenes try to explain it but it always seems different and adds to the confusion.

Despite that issue, everything about this movie is in perfect line with the video games. From its tone, it's art design to overall shooting style. Simon West does a great job making this feel like the games, which was light years above so many other adaptations that came before it.

Also, while there might be a lot of insufficiencies with the plot, this is a cast that is really up to the challenge of getting around that problem. There was no better choice for the title character than Angelina Jolie. She is so committed to this role and literally mirrors the character from the games perfectly, while also making it her own. She's so good, that it is hard to picture anyone else in that role.

Noah Taylor and Chris Barrie play Lara's tech expert and butler, and are essentially the comic relief in the movie, which they perform exceptionally. Taylor says "bugger" about 50,000 times but it works.

This was also the first movie that I remember ever seeing Daniel Craig in, who plays Alex West. If you were to tell people back in 2001 that this guy would be the future James Bond, you would've gotten dead silence. Great performance though, and I do like his chemistry with Jolie. I kind of wish they did more together.

The last actor I'll bring up is Iain Glen, who plays Manfred Powell. He's such an over the top villain that he's actually pretty memorable. He's the most cliched bad guy but it works in this film.

So overall, it's not perfect as a story. It's a movie that really could've benefited from a script doctor. However, there's so much that works. It fits the game so well, the cast is game, and the results are undeniably entertaining.

I've watched this movie around five times in total now and every time feels like the first, it's a lot of fun. The ludicrous plot about the planets aligning always surprises me that's what the writers went with, as opposed to you know, raiding tombs?

I watched the special features on the blu-ray and saw one of the creators make a statement that the film wasn't at all "cheesy, corny or camp" - did this guy watch the same version I did? The film is all of those things, from the opening scene in which Lara fights a training robot to then insert a mix-tape cassette, Lara's padded pointy breasts, and not forgetting the film ends on a freeze frame shot of Lara holding her guns - yeah not at all...

If somehow you've never seen this film until today, don't take it at all seriously or you won't enjoy it, just switch your brain off and you'll likely get something out of it.