Throwback Thursday Review: 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider'

Sorry for the slight delay, but I prioritized an early review of Tomb Raider last week before even stopping to watch Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Anyways, I'm reviewing Lara Croft: Tomb Raider to coincide with last weekend's release of the 2018 incarnation. If you're wondering what happened with the previous week's Throwback Thurday, I was originally going to review A Wrinkle in Time (2004) till I found out it was a four hour eleven minute TV movie... I read the novel in seventh grade and can recall watching the TV movie in class, but I'd rather not spend four hours watching something I already know I dislike just to turn around and spend another few hours writing about it... Now that that's all cleared up, you can expect to see the following reviews through the remainder of March. This includes Throwback Thursday Reviews of Pacific Rim, and Jurassic Park, new reviews of Pacific Rim: Uprising, Isle of Dogs, and Ready Player One.

'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider' Review

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider accompanies the adept adventurer Lara Croft as she races across the globe to save the world by keeping ancient artifacts out of the wrong hands. There's not really much of a plot beyond that simple set-up though, as Croft merely globe trotted from ancient ruin to ancient ruin for little else than an over-the-top action sequence.

For whatever reason, I've found it incredibly difficult to write about this movie (hence why this review's a week late). What could I possibly have to say about this that hasn't already been said? It's an adaptation that accurately reflects the silly escapades lead by an accomplished femme fatale found in the the Tomb Raider video game series from the '90s. Director Simon West clearly wasn't interested in deviating from the source material much at all, as the film adaptation hardly explores anything else. Instead, viewers are offered an exploitation of Angelina Jolie's sex appeal which was meant to disguise a faulty action flick. Did that work? Not really. I was entirely unengaged when Lara wasn't wrapped up in some silly situation. When something did catch my attention, I was still uninvested in the story at hand.

The film's enjoyable in the sense that everything you watch unfold is so preposterous that you can't help but smile amidst it all. The script is composed of an outlandish story strung together by John Zinman, Patrick Massett, and Michael Colleary, a silly screenplay full of corny dialogue penned by Mike Were and Sara B. Cooper, while West himself is credited by the Writers Guild for the adaptation itself. The action sequences don't fair much better either, as it's all spectacle for the sake of  including spectacle. As an viewer, I could have cared less whether Lara emerged triumphant over the stone monkeys or not. And on that note, the CGI is ridiculously dated. Of course, that's because this came out in 2001, but I think the effects are still lacking for the time in which they were rendered.

Angelina Jolie commits to Lara Croft's over-sexualized attitude, but there's little else going on for the character. Jolie just fights varying baddies and stops every once and a while to pose like a vapid lipstick/lingerie model (there's a significant emphasis on her lips, hips, and breasts)... I suppose she succeeded at playing the sex icon the filmmakers were hoping for, but I'd hardly call that acting. I'd comment on her co-stars, but they hardly do anything in the film worth mentioning. I can at least say it was interesting to see what Daniel Craig and Iain Glen were up to seventeen years ago before they became James Bond and Jorah Mormont respectively. It's nice to know they found success elsewhere.

After watching Lara Croft: Tomb Raider for the first time on Netflix, I've only become more appreciative of this year's Tomb Raider. It's easy to understand why this film franchise's tomb was ever sealed to begin with.

Film Assessment: D