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Poster (c) Paramount Pictures
I was not disappointed at Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. I went into it with certain expectations, and they were met. It was everything that I expected it to be. It had some good, if stupid, action scenes, Angelina Jolie looking good in various skin-tight outfits, lame characters and inane dialogue. The poster is the greatest of the year so far. If a summer movie is what you want, this will be perfect. If you’re looking for an atypical movie that just happens to be released in the summer, look elsewhere, because Tomb Raider doesn’t have an ounce of anything worthwhile. Ten minutes after you see it, you’ll forget that you did see it.
Our heroine from the first film and the countless video games, Lara Croft (Jolie), is now on a quest to find the mythical Pandora’s Box. For some reason or another, she has to go to China, Hong Kong, and Africa, while riding a shark, riding a motorbike on the Great Wall of China, and fighting on a high-rise building. Along the way, she partners with former criminal Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler) for some unknown reason (considering everyone in this movie has an accent, it’s hard to tell what they’re saying most of the time. Also, the parts in between the action weren’t that exciting.)
The action scenes weren’t the best, but one scene really stood out. During it, I thought “green screen and wires,” but it was still pretty impressive. Then, after I saw it, I read that the stunts were actually real. The scene I’m talking about is when Lara and Sheridan sky dive off of the 81st floor of a building, using some sort of convoluted parachute thing. It was pretty amazing to see it happen. One of the best stunts of the year.
Of course, the good goes to the bad. The dialogue was lame. They seemed to just try to get from one exotic location to another. Not that the locations were bad or anything, but maybe if Jan de Bont (who can produce hits like Speed and misses like Speed 2) had had some more intelligent dialogue added in, then it wouldn’t have been so bad in between the semi-good action scenes.
Now, let me gripe about the characterization. What characterization, you may ask. I say, exactly. A few characters from the first film pop up now and again, but since I didn’t remember them (I haven’t seen the first one for two years), I didn’t care about them. What really bothered me, though, is not how I didn’t know anything about any characters they talked about, but when characters, large ones, just popped in from out of nowhere. For example, when Lara is going to Africa, she parachutes down into the exact automobile that someone she had known before was driving. That man is important for the last part, but he just randomly popped up.
If you can get past the absurdity of shark riding and mystical creatures that never sleep, then you just may like Tomb Raider 2. If you stick on the important parts of movies, then you’ll find many faults.
Rated PG-13 for action violence and some sensuality.
Review Date: August 16, 2003