Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - Movie Review

Now I know I just reviewed recently a female lead property with Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. However with "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOvember!" I had a desire to review a movie that's not that good with a female lead. I had a lot of options because Hollywood has been sexist for years and women do deserve better roles. I mean look at all the hand-holding Rey got in Star Wars. Anyways I considered films like Twilight, 365 Days, D.O.A.: Dead or Alive, and Truth or Dare. But after the traumatizing of Gods of Egypt and because I really want to stay positive this month I came up with something much better. I mean it's still a dumb movie, but what I've picked is actually really fun and has some great positives to go with its dumbness. This film is Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, based on the Tomb Raider games, is about Lara Croft, an adventurer who hunts for rare artifacts. One day she gets a dream about her dead father and discovers a mysterious clock in her house that leads to an ancient city. It soon becomes a race against the Illuminati as both groups hunt for the mysterious parts to this ancient city and possibly a power that could change all of history. Now the plot might sound silly, but this is also based on a game series where at one point you're trying to gun down a T-rex with duel pistols. The movie matches a lot of the tone of the original games (not the recent remakes that try to be a lot more serious).

Let me just get this out of the way: Angelina Jolie was perfect for this film. The character of Laura Croft is basically a female Indiana Jones: Adventurous, witty, very attractive, strong, a bit reckless, and with a signature, easily recognizable weapon (for Indiana Jones it's the whip and for Lara it's her duel pistols). Though she doesn't have Jones's grumpiness, which is kind of interesting. Jolie nails all of that, looking a lot like the character from the games and perfectly getting her attitude throughout the whole film. This all creates a character that's really likeable and one you want to watch kick butt and collect those artifacts. Also, I don't really say this often when it comes to films or women because I'm more into what's on the inside than the outside, but Angelina Jolie was very sexy in the movie, which both matches how Lara appeared in the games. But it's not overdone to make her look like a sex object like in most films with a female protagonist or lead character since throughout most of the film she's showing her off skills more than her looks. With her beauty, combined with her talents and that sense of adventure, Angelina Jolie's representation of Lara Croft is a character that I think people can look up to because they're talented and beautiful, but with enough charm to her performance that viewers, especially ones in their teens, can treat like they're a cool person and not just a sexy lady.

Now this film is definitely not that good of a movie, mostly because of the story. It's not that good, with a lot exposition and just flashy stuff that doesn't make sense and with a plot that I didn't really care about too much. Or at least all the plot revolving around anybody that wasn't Lara Croft. And even then the story goes by so fast that I wasn't given enough time to take everything in. One moment we're in the Croft mansion, next we're in Cambodia, then in Venice, then in Siberia. They don't explain how people get about or really give weight to the consequences if our heroes fail in the journey. There are also some plot points that are barely explained or given importance in the story, like how Lara's butler wants her to act a little more lady-like, but at the end of the movie she's wearing a white dress and a hat and I was like, "Wait... why?" There's also some strange little ghost girls that appear to Lara every now and then that give her advice for no reason. The story is kind of a mess. I really wished movie wasn't so condensed because the film is just over an hour and a half, including credits. That's pretty short and I feel if the film had more time things wouldn't feel so rushed.

The characters are also just... not that interesting. The Illuminati as villains are incredibly weak in the story because they barely do a thing in the whole movie. Then we have Iain Glen (Ser Jorah Mormont in Game of Thrones) as the main villain, Powell, a member of the Illuminati and he's basically one of those mustache-twirling villains. Lara Croft was the only character in the movie who really does anything of merit, everyone else is just not given the chance to do anything remotely cool. Daniel Craig is also in this film playing Alex West, some guy from America that Lara has worked with before and works for Powell now because money. He might have been Lara's love interest at some point because she has to save him at the end of the movie, but that's not really explained either. And yeah, Daniel Craig, James Bond himself, does a funny American accent, while Angelina Jolie, an American actress, does a British accent. It's so weird and funny. Lara's butler and her mechanic are a bit more fleshed out that the rest of the cast, but not by much. Another reason why I say the film should have had more time added to it, so all the characters could get more screen time and development.

After all this negativity though I can say that the action in the film, as well as the CGI (for its time), is great. The action in this movie was very exciting for me and I was eager to see more as the film progressed. There's this one sequence involving bungee-ballet that is really kickass, very well shot and edited, and had a lot of epic moments in it. I mean some of the action involves some weird moments, but they're all really fun! For instance there's a moment in that fight where Lara gets on a motorcycle, guns some mercenaries down, then hits the breaks before spinning on the front wheel and knocking out the last guy by swinging the back end in the air right into his face. Just thinking about that moment is making me shiver in excitement. The blows are strong and while I didn't feel a sense of danger for any character it all looked really cool and was well-choreographed.

Additionally I think the film is mostly well shot and the practicals, however ridiculous they can be, look great. At the end of the film all the main characters are in this odd room with a giant model of the solar system and despite how ridiculous the plot is at this point it is a real, physical construction and the characters are interacting with it like it's a real thing. Also, since CGI wasn't completely dominant in the film industry at this time, almost all the places in the movie were shot in real locations like Cambodia, Siberia, London, etc. It's something I really miss with films now-a-days, a lot of them, especially action films, just use CGI so much for backgrounds when I want to feel I'm being transported to a real place. Just having so much practical stuff really made me happy while watching the film because it just made everything feel a bit more real and worth my time.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is absolutely a guilty pleasure movie. It's stupid and only Lara Croft is given any real development, but it's a really fun film because the action is great, the camerawork is pretty strong, and Lara herself is just a very fun character. The film makers really tried with this movie, it wasn't just a dumb cash grab. Again, it's a really stupid film, but I can appreciate some points on it and there's genuinely great elements to the film that make it worth watching. And that's why despite how dumb the plot is and how nobody besides Lara gets any real story, I can recommend this film to you all.

Tentative Score: 6/10

Definitive Score: 6/10

This film still remains one of the highest box office returns for female-leading films. Think about that guys...