Tomb Raider

Not sure what everyone was expecting or why even compare this to the first film or even the game. This was more of a prequel to the first film and it was really well done! Alicia Vikander was great in her role. A well deserved 8/10 from me.

Overall this is your average action movie.

But, Alicia Vikander on the other hand is an amazing action star; what a revelation! I love it when Hollywood casts an actor like Alicia in an action role who has the physique/physicality, can believably pull off the action role and perform parts or most of the stunts like running/fighting which results in seamless action scenes between star and stunt double so there's no need for shaky cam or SFX (unlike scarlet johanssen's lame natasha romanoff/BW). Also some of the action sequences are very much like in the video game.

The plot was extremely predictable and the dialog was weak, however Alicia Vikander's physical performance was amazing and there were a few standout moments of cinematography.

Ironically in 'Tomb Raider' they got the hard part right and messed up the easy part. The hard part in my opinion was correctly casting 'Lara Croft'. To follow in the shoes of a peak-of-her-powers Angelina Jolie is no easy feat. They pulled that off though by finding Alicia Vikander who was excellent in this film. The part they messed up though, and why this is such a bland experience, was they just didn't give her anything interesting to do.

The film starts off fun. The character introductions are clever, interesting and get you amped for what is to come. Then when the actual adventure begins the entire film stalls and never manages to start up again. The location was mildly interesting, but for almost the entire film to be set on the one island just felt lazy and uncreative - especially with a runtime near 2 hours. Also the villain was about as dull as they come.

Vikander is what saves this from being a total misfire though. She has the look, the charisma and the sexiness to pull off the character with ease. There was a bit of controversy with the films poster and her abnormally long neck in it. I couldn't help but notice that she does have a very long neck in reality, but the poster was still taking things a bit far clearly. I certainly couldn't recommend this as a film to rush out and see because it is so uninspiring and middle of the road. It's not terrible, it just never dares to be great.

Seriously this is like some kind of 1930's soviet world where all of a sudden people start getting cropped out of photos. Laura Croft without her signature pistols is absurd. I have no trouble with Vikander, she is a great actor. but having her, with an unsighted composite bow (!), make bow shots that are impossible at 1/10 the range, treats the audience like idiots. Seriously this film does not merely require that you suspend disbelief, it is a fight film which requires that: a) you know nothing whatsoever about fighting and b) that you have an IQ below 80. (hence all the "8" through "10" star reviews by people so dumb that they think we can't see their only account activity is to upshill this stinker!)