"Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" - Action Gives it Life by Homer Yen (c) 2003
If there were an award given for Best Action Heroine/Best Actress, there would be no doubt in my mind that it would go to Lara Croft/Angelina Jolie. This is a woman who embodies mystery, adventure, and charisma. Throw in unlimited resources which allows her to have every cool gizmo that you can think of, beautiful looks that belie her deft fighting skills, and that charming British accent which makes you wish that she would just whisper in your ear, and you have yourself a real kick-butt angel. Meanwhile, Angelina Jolie is the perfect fit for this high-powered/highly intelligent action hero who fits as snuggly into her character as Lara fits into that silvery body suit.
After seeing an early scene of "The Cradle of Life," in which she escapes collapsing underwater ruins, you kind of think that Lara/Angelina would make a more-than-able sidekick in the next James Bond film. No, actually, you might even think that James Bond would make an able sidekick in the next "Tomb Raider" film! In this particular scene, to return to the surface after her scuba gear is damaged, she slits her arm and squeezes out some blood to attract a nearby shark. When this predator approaches, she stuns it. Then, while the shark orients itself to go back to the surface, Lara holds on to the dorsal fin as she speeds to safety. They don't teach you that in Sunday school!
The whole film, actually, is a pretty cool summertime adventure and certainly more entertaining and assured than the original. "The Cradle of Life" is a race to find Pandora's Box, which if opened, will unleash a terrible plague upon mankind. There are evil-doers who want it for themselves, thus forcing Lara to enlist the help of a hunky mercenary named Terry (Gerard Butler), a former partner that she treats with respect and suspicion. However, he has the necessary skills to help her track it down..
His inclusion not only gives the women in the audience something to look at, but also provides a certain amount of playful romantic tension that seems to be missing from Lara's life. It gives her a moment to reflect, however, whether she actually still likes Terry or not. And if she does and if Terry betrays her, will she have the resolve to kill him? Such are the personal issues of a globetrotting, adventuring hottie.
The movie grooves along grandly with a James-Bond-meets-Indiana-Jones feel. It moves along briskly for the first three-quarters of the film as their quest takes them to China, Hong Kong, and the Kilimanjaro. There is a lot of interesting lore that gets explained along the way and there are lots of narrow escapes to give us that needed summertime thrill.
The film makes a couple of miscalculations as it tries to wrap everything up. The film ends abruptly, as if they were running out of film and had to just end it right there. The film also runs out of clever and exciting ideas. It abandons its James Bond/Indiana Jones feel and unwisely takes on the persona of "The Mummy." I felt as if a totally different movie possessed the film. Luckily, the film is successful at building its momentum so that it still manages to whisk across the finish line long before we consciously realize that. This adventure film, for the most part, competently delivers.
Grade: B S: 1 out of 3 L: 0 out of 3 V: 2 out of 3
========== X-RAMR-ID: 35364 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1179237 X-RT-TitleID: 1124023 X-RT-AuthorID: 1370 X-RT-RatingText: B
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews