In last thirty years video games were notoriously difficult to properly adapt for big screen, at least in a manner that would satisfy their games’ original fans. Even when some of those films succeeded at the box office, that triumph proved to be fleeting and reputation of such films sank very quickly. This happened to Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, 2001 action adventure film directed by Simon West.
The film is based on Tomb Raider, series of action adventure games featuring protagonist in the form of young gun-totting big-breasted British aristocratic woman Lara Croft. It took only few years and few titles in the series for Lara Croft to become one of the most popular characters in the gaming world, at the time still dominated by teenage males. As such, it was natural for sex symbol of the gaming world be played with one of Hollywood’s greatest sex symbols – Angelina Jolie. The plot begins when Lara Croft, adventurer specialised for finding precious artefacts in ancient tombs across the world, finds one such artefact in her home. The artefact was left there by her father Lord Richard Croft (played by Jon Voight) fifteen years ago, shortly before he would disappear. It turns out that the artefact is part of the talisman that allows its owner to control time. Talisman can be used only during a very rare constellation that occur once in 5000 years. Since constellation is about to occur very soon, Illuminati, secret society that wants to control the world, become interested in Lara. Her home is targeted by their mercenaries who steal the artefact. Lara is, however, determined to find the remaining artefacts and travels to different parts of the world to obtain it before Illuminati and thus prevent the global catastrophe.
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider represents pleasant surprise, but only to those who expected the worst from it. There were reasons for such pessimism, mainly because of director Simon West, whose previous record wasn’t exactly stellar and who gave film bad publicity by publicly quarrelling with scriptwriters. In Tomb Raider he employed MTV style of directing, based on rapid cuts and emphasis on CGI-saturated action scenes at the expense of plot and characters. Although hardly anyone expected much depth for a film based on a video game, a medium that was more primitive in late 1990s than it is now, it is difficult to escape impression that the scriptwriters could have pay at least a bit more attention to scenes between the action. Angelina Jolie, one of the more interesting and popular actresses of her time, is thus forced to say some of the least intelligent lines of her career, serve as auxiliary to CGI and even her sex appeal is suppressed due to PG-13 rating. Jolie, on the other hand, seems to be more at ease with purely physical aspects of action scenes and her British accent seem credible to untrained ear. The rest of cast is mostly solid, especially Chris Barrie, actor famous for playing Arnold Rimmer in popular television series Red Dwarf, and who is here very good in the role of Lara’s butler Hillary. Daniel Craig also seems to have fun playing American mercenary Alex West, whose character is the most complex in the film. Barrie and Craig are responsible for few bright moments that make Lara Croft: Tomb Raider watchable. In the end, despite poor reviews, public flocked to the theatres thanks to Jolie’s star power and Tomb Raider became big hit. In 2003 a sequel Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life was released, which received better reviews but had less impressive box office results. In 2018 a reboot with Alicia Vikander in Lara’s role was released, but it failed to repeat this film’s success.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
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