TOMB RAIDER – The umpteenth attempt to turn a blockbuster video game into a hit movie. Lara Croft is back for her third cinema outing cue new origin story and then a high octane action-packed trip to a Japanese jungle.
Nutshell – We meet Lara as a troubled kid in London as a low earning cycling courier mourning the death of her parents and in particular her Dad who went missing on an antiquity hunt. She gets sucked into retracing his steps in the Far East where there are ample bad guys, endless Tomb booby traps and a total bitch of a supernatural being that could destroy the planet. Think Raiders of The Lost Ark with boobs although it does stay closer to the computer games than the Angelina Jolie two attempts.
Running Time – 118 minutes – 12A.
Tagline – ‘Her Legend Begins’…..and end with this Box Office
The Gay UK Factor – When we meet the bad guys things pick up hugely as each thug following each thug is hornier, sweatier and more muscle-bound than the last. Ok, so they all get dispatched at some point but a conveyor belt of good looking men all of which look like they were born to top, makes things very watchable – think Tinder/Scruff or Grindr the movie version.
Cast – Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Derek Jacobi, Kristin Scott Thomas and Daniel Wu so nobody worth getting that excited about or reach for your Fleshjack’s for but it’s the character that will sell the tickets here hopefully.
Key Player – Core Design the company that 23 years ago designed the Lara Croft character the only computer game to have three movies and the character is also in Guinnesses Book Of Records as the most successful in computer gaming history.
Budget – $94 Million and it is already suffering with an opening of just 25 Million. Very few movies actually make a loss nowadays with DVD/TV/Streaming/Satellite etc and most importantly the global market especially Asia and with this film set in Japan that is a lock. Sequels though may be in question.
Best Bit – 0.49 mins; A big action set piece where Lara is escaping the bad guys via some rapids ending up clinging to various parts of an old aircraft that has crashed atop a waterfall. There are four genuine heart in the mouth moments but not a lot comes close in the rest of the movie.
Worst Bit – 0.01 mins; Purely and simply Alicia Vikander just does not have a lot of presence and is largely unconvincing pulling off all the fights and action later in the movie from no obvious training, background or experience. She is certainly no Angelina Jolie or even Gal Gadot for that matter.
Further Viewing – Lara Crofts 1 and 2, Indiana Jones 1 through 5, Jewel On The Nile but avoid all computer game/movies as from Warcraft to Assassins Creed they are all as much use as those tissues under your bed.
Any Good – It’s passable without being outstanding. The action story and locations (with South Africa standing in for the Japanese islands) are all decent but whoever did the casting here needs their heads examining. You won’t want your money back but Angelina will hardly be worried about this taking her green T-shirt and twin guns away. It’s borderline whether this will turn into a franchise or not but a sequel will have to up its game.
Rating – 50% out of 100.
