Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
Action | Adventure | Fantasy

"Angelina Jolie Delivers! She's The Ultimate Superhero" -Sandie Newton, CBS-TV

Lara Croft, the world's most famous video-game heroine, burst onto the big screen in "…the most stylish and entertaining action-adventure movie in years!"

Exploring lost empires, finding priceless treasures, punishing villains in mortal combat.. It's all in a day's work for adventurer Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie). But a secret from her father's (Jon Voight) past is about to lead Lara to her greatest challenge: the Triangle Of Light, a legendary artifact with the power to alter space and time. Lara must find the Triangle before it falls into the clutches of the Illuminati, a secret society bent on world domination. To stop the Illuminati, Lara will have to survive a cross-continental chase filled with unimaginable danger. But for the Tomb Raider, danger is the name of the game.

Storyline: A member of a rich British aristocratic family, Lara Croft is a "tomb raider" who enjoys collecting ancient artifacts from ruins of temples, cities, etc. worldwide, and doesn't mind going through death-defying dangers to get them. She is skilled in hand-to-hand combat, weapons training, and foreign languages - and does them all in tight outfits. Well, the planets of the solar system are going into planetary alignment (Which occurs every 5,000 years), and a secret society called the Illuminati is seeking an ancient talisman that gives its possessor the ability to control time. However, they need a certain clock/key to help them in their search, and they have to find the talisman in one week or wait until the next planetary alignment to find it again. Lara happens to find that key hidden in a wall of her mansion. The Illuminati steal it, and Lara gets an old letter from her deceased father telling her about the society's agenda (Her father was also the one who hid the key). Now, she ... Written by Vampirok

User Comment: cjphilli • This movie rocked! I'm a huge fan of the Tomb Raider games and of Angelina Jolie. This was like watching the video game come to life. The action was intense and well staged. I know alot of people compare Tomb Raider to Indiana Jones but Indy has nothing on Lara. The mythological elements to the story were fantastic, the special effects were superb and the film had a really strong human element. Even though she kicks major butt, you still get the sense that Lara is a real person. It was about time that Jolie and her real life father Jon Voight finally share the screen together and their characters relationship really give the film its heart. All that's left to say is bring on Angie, Lara and TOMB RAIDER 2!!!

Summary: My Favorite Actress Brings My Favorite Game To Life, In A Big Way!!!

User Comment: curtis martin (curtis3martin@yahoo.com) Washington D.C., USA • "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" is not nearly as bad as the major critics are making it out to be (except for Roger Ebert, who liked it--but then again he likes any movie with a hot chick in it).

The film has a very "mid-sixties/early seventies" feel about it. "Tomb Raider"s closest film relatives are not the Indiana Jones movies, as is always written. No, the makers of "Tomb Raider" are not aiming that high. The kind of movies "Tomb Raider" is most reminiscent of are relatively low-budget flicks like Ray Harryhausen's "Sinbad" movies from the 60's and 70's, AIP's Doug McClure "People That Time Forgot" flicks, and the James Bond Movies and their 60's copycats (and, yes, compared to a modern day action-fest like "TR" the James Bond films were "relatively low budget"). Throw in a few emphatic nods to Jackie Chan style Hong Kong cinema, a teasing-but-sexless pinch of "Barbarella" and you've got "Tomb Raider".

So, there is a cheesiness and a lack of logic--but there is also a childlike sense of good old-fashioned fun. And when was the last time you saw a fun American action movie that wasn't marketed to kids?

Two major flaws keep "TR" from being a classic of this nameless action genre:

#1: The filmmakers in charge of "TR" don't have the storytelling sense that even the hacks who cranked out the low-budget films I've previously mentioned did. And I'm not talking about plot--I'm talking about the audience being able to tell what exactly is going on up on the screen at any given moment. Director Simon West attempts several major action sequences in "TR" and, unfortunately, none of them work as well as they could. In fact, two Jackie Chan influenced stunt-action set pieces are so incomprehensibly edited that it is only long after the scene is over that you can piece together what you just saw. And this is a shame, because once you do, you can appreciate how clever it all must have seemed on paper--especially for a sequence involving Lara fighting dozens of men while bouncing up and down in a high-ceilinged room on a giant bungee. Now, if West, his cinematographer, and his editor had found a way to at least fake the "look he's really doing that" effect of a Chan action scene, the sequence would have been phenomenal. As it is, however, they favor nonsensical motion over exciting coherence--the scene is nothing but a bunch of very quick cuts of body parts zooming by, squibs blowing holes in walls, and bodies falling from high places. As I said, it is only after the hubbub that you piece it together. So, why go to the trouble to choreograph a cool and elaborate action/stunt scene if you're only going to shoot it in a way that makes it seem as though you simply threw dozens of rolling cameras in the air at once, and then edit the footage in a blender? It is hard to understand why western action filmmakers, with all their technology, still completely fail when they try to absorb (rip-off) Hong Kong action film styles.

#2: Too many nonsensical plot details. Again, West and his fellow filmmakers display a standard of story-sense that is way below that of the low-budget journeymen writers and directors of the recent past. This is especially true during the idiotic and incomprehensible climax, involving a thingamajig that controls time.

And again, it is not the plot that is bad--a gizmo that controls time, the mysteriously evil Illuminati out to conquer the world, magic keys, planetary alignment, statues that magically come to life. No, its the fact that the screenwriters obviously didn't know that--no matter what is going on, no matter how weird or goofy or outta this world or even illogical it is--the audience still needs to know what's going on up on the screen for full enjoyment. You have to build your film's logic, especially if it operates outside the logic of the real world. I won't spoil any of it for you by providing details of the movie's loads of faux-mystical hoo-ha here. Beside, its already kinda spoiled up there on the screen by the idiotically poor writing).

But, having said that, "Tomb Raider" is fun. Its just that, for someone like me who was brought up on action/adventure/fantasy films where the makers had 1/100th the amount of money to spend on their thrills (or less) it hurts when I see filmmakers with tens upon tens of millions of dollars at their disposal flush so much of it down the john.

Summary: Coulda been great action/adventure trash, but.....

--- JOYA ---

º º