Tomb Raider
Directed by Simon West
Starring Angelina Jolie, Iain Glen, Jon Voight
Currently playing at the Capitol 7 Theatres
Any doubts about Angelina Jolie’s ability to play Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft are dispelled in the very first scenes of the film.
Jolie jumps, kicks, and leaps with a gravity-defying panache that could only be found, well, in a video game. Along with the strap-on pistols, the practical-yet- flirty-braid and the more-than-ample bosom, Jolie has the physique to be an action hero and then some.
The movie spares no expense replicating the lush graphics that fuelled the video game’s popularity. The ancient temples are full of hieroglyphs and moss-covered artifacts. There’s also axe-throwing warriors made of rock and a giant six-armed statue.
And yet the movie comes up short. The movie-goer just can’t keep up with Croft. For starters, the plot is about as easy to follow as the labyrinths she hangs out in.
The story is about a secret society of evil-doers known as the Illuminati who are anticipating the alignment of the planets, an astrological fluke that occurs once every 5000 years. If they reunite the lost pieces of a magical triangle at the same time, they can control time. The group commissions Manfred Powell (Iain Glen) to find the key that will retrieve the triangle. This puts him on a collision course with Croft, whose late father (Jon Voight, Jolie’s real-life father) tells her the Illuminati must be stopped at all costs. Lucky for us, Croft has it all figured out. She anticipates every danger and solves every riddle with ease. While this is expected in the action genre, it destroys any suspense the movie might have had. The movie also neglects to give its heroine a personality. The only heart-felt interaction she has is with her dead father, and that scene is marred with cheesey, ‘you’ll never be alone” lines.
But for those satisfied by eye candy, Tomb Raider delivers. She knocks out a small army of intruders while dressed in silk pyjamas.
Tomb Raider lives up to the video game, but that’s about it.
—Adrian Liu
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