I recently decided to visit our local library and while I was there, I had to check out the film selection they had to rent. While looking through the titles, I mainly saw either movies I already owned or movies I didn’t care to see. As I was about to consider the quest a bust, I happened upon a little title called “Tomb Raider”. Now, I didn’t have much interest in checking this out in theaters but for a free rental, what was the harm?
The movie tells the story of Lara Croft as she tries to come to terms with her dad’s passing. As she dives into what happened to her father, she sets off on an adventure to unlock the secrets to a supernatural power which may help her figure out what really happened to her father.
The film is of course an adaptation of the popular “Tomb Raider” game franchise that has been around since the era of the first PlayStation game console. I remember playing the first couple of “Tomb Raider” games on my brother’s PlayStation and really enjoying them. This marks the third film they have made adapting the game franchise, with the first two being “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” and “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider -The Cradle of Life” both of which starred Angelina Jolie. This film is more of a direct adaptation of the 2013 reboot of “Tomb Raider” made for the PlayStation 3. The film even lifts direct elements and gameplay from that particular title.
As previously stated, Angelina Jolie had played Lara Croft in the first two films but in the reboot Swedish actress Alicia Vikander takes over the role. Anyone who has seen “Ex Machina” knows what an incredible actress Vikander can be but in this film, she really isn’t given much to do. She plays the character as less of a vixen sex symbol and more as a tough as nails bad ass. The problem with that is that her Lara Croft never feels like Ronda Rousey in her prime, she feels more like Rousey after her loss to Holly Holm. Walton Goggins is always a great addition to a cast but he doesn’t even show up until a good forty minutes into the movie and he is supposed to be the big bad of the movie.
The biggest problem with this “Tomb Raider” film is that it ironically tried to make Lara Croft feel too human. In the original PlayStation games, Croft was always portrayed as basically a sexy female Indiana Jones. I don’t mind them taking the vixen out of the character, but the Indiana Jones aspect was crucial. Croft was supposed to be an adventurer and archeologist. Lara Croft was never a pizza delivery girl who happened on to adventures. I am all for changing Lara Croft and trying not to make her a sexual object, but I think you should also try to make her a strong female lead in the process and Croft in this film does not feel empowered in the slightest.
In “Tomb Raider”, Croft proves to be a classic “damsel in distress” more than any Disney princess ever was. From the beginning to the end, Croft loses a fight, loses a bike race, gets swindled by a pawn dealer, gets randomly almost robbed by a gang in Hong Kong (although a drunk man saves her), gets kidnapped and forced to do labor (although the same man saves her), and almost releases a supernatural plague on the world (though she is saved by her dad). It is a shame that the film didn’t make an attempt to make Lara Croft feel more bad ass.
“Tomb Raider” ultimately feels like a waste of a couple of hours. It is like playing a game loaded with quick time events that make you feel like a loser time and time again. Added to that the awful cookie cutter plot, this movie could have and should have been so much better.
Grade: D
No comments:
Post a Comment