LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER (2001)

MORGAN'S RATING

Lara Croft's work takes her to dangerous and mysterious locales around the globe, searching for lost crypts from empires long since forgotten. From the frozen ruins embedded in a glacier within the Arctic Circle to a forgotten valley filled with supposedly-extinct creatures in South America's rainforests, Croft's ventures are one part treasure hunt and one part adrenaline rush.

Angelina Jolie (Lara Croft), Iain Glen (Manfred Powell), Jon Voight (Lord Richard Croft), Daniel Craig (Alex Cross), Noah Taylor (Bryce), Leslie Phillips (Wilson), Chris Barrie (Hillary), Julian Rhind-Tutt (Mr. Pimms), Richard Johnson (Distinguished Gentleman), Robert Phillips (Assault Team Leader), Rachel Appleton (Young Lara), Stephanie Burns (Little Inuit Girl), Ozzie Yue (Aged Buddhist Monk), Carl Chase (Ancient High Priest), Richenda Carey (Imperious Woman), Sylvano Clarke (UPS Guy), Olegario Fedoro (Russian), Mark Collie (Larson).

BORN INTO WEALTH. GROOMED BY THE ELITE. TRAINED FOR COMBAT. WHO IS LARA CROFT?

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

DIRECTOR: Simon West (Con Air). WRITERS: Michael Colleary, Laeta Kalogridis, Patrick Massett, Mike Werb, Simon West and John Zinman. PRODUCERS: Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin and Colin Wilson. CO-PRODUCERS: Bobby Klein and Chris Kenny.  EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Stuart Baird and Jeremy H. Smith. ORIGINAL MUSIC: Graeme Revell; theme song by Fatboy Slim; Bono (song), Adam Clayton (song), Larry Mullen Jr. (songs), Nine Inch Nails (song), Trent Reznor (song), and The Edge (song).  DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount Pictures.

QUOTES

Lara Croft: It's a clock...it's ticking. Wilson: Oh, it's one of those ticking clocks, eh?

Hilary: A lady should be modest. Lara Croft: A lady should.

Lara Croft: But you might try to kill me. Manfred Powell: I'm not going to kill you. Lara Croft: I said you'd try.

Lara Croft: This is where I start to have fun.

FACTS

RELEASE DATE: June 15th, 2001 (USA) DVD RELEASE DATE: November 13th, 2001 (USA) BOX OFFICE OPENING: $47.7 million (USA) BOX OFFICE RESULT: $131.1 million (USA) BUDGET: $80 million (USA) SHOOTING DATES: July 2000 -- January 2001 - Nominated for one 2002 Razzie Award for: Worst Actress (Angelina Jolie).

CRITICAL COMMENTS

"The movie credits five separate persons for the story and screenplay, a quintet of scribes who might better consider a career shift into acting -- they've clearly done a splended job of impersonating monkeys at a typewriter." --  Rick Groen, Canadian Globe & Mail

"So pandering and pebble-brained you'd guess it had been test-screened on barnyard animals." -- Michael Atkinson, Village Voice

"There is more tension in Jolie's T-shirts than in the dramatic action." -- Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter

"Of all this summer's mindless blockbusters, this is arguably the most fun." -- James Berardinelli, ReelViews

"For a modestly budgeted project -- this movie's well-done and watchable, even occasionally elegant." -- Desson Howe, Washington Post

"A visually spectacular yet oddly cheerless experience." -- Gemma Files, Film.com

"Loud, banal, empty, frenzied, plasticized, flavorless, drab, violent in a bloodless way and sexy in a sexless way." -- Stephen Hunter, Washington Post

"The movie never summons the slightest pretense that there is anything at stake for the audience." -- Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

"While Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is as cumbersome as most films in this subgenre, Angelina Jolie makes it watchable." -- Jay Carr, Boston Globe

"Here is a movie so monumentally silly, yet so wondrous to look at, that only a churl could find fault." -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

"A tedious bore that deserves early entombment." -- Lou Lumenick, New York Post