Review of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) by Bradley W — 14 Jan 2012

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was a very strange film, I was anticipating an action film but instead got some weird pornographic treasure hunt movie. Here are the reasons I believe this was some weird porno, the lack of clothing, how she is like the only woman in this film, and she must have done stripping every thirty minutes. People who are fans of the video game might like it, but I have never played the game and from what I have seen and heard this is nothing like it. It was a decent action film but that honestly was it.

The story follows Lara Croft (Anjelina Jolie) who is a treasure hunter. When she discovers a secret that her father left her, she will do anything to discover the secrets that this treasure will lead her too. This is unlike anything Lara has ever done.

The plot was truly awful if you ask me. We start the movie and if you have never played or heard of the video game you will likely be so confused about who she is that it will hurt, but since I love video games I knew who and what she was. The character has always been supposed to give sex appeal but this was different, know they have turned the heroin into as I said before, a stripper or porn star. Every moment of this story was boring and they have turned this hero into some weird adventurous hooker.

The cast was also a major let down. Anjelina Jolie is a good actress, she proved it to me in Changeling. But here is a role that I found very boring and pointless. She might have been going through the "Megan Fox Stage" which is what I call the time in an actresses career where she is only in movies where they her for sex appeal. Daniel Craig, Jon Joight, Noah Taylor and everyone else were just supporting actors looking for a nice juicy paycheck.

The action is where the film is best but it still was not that great of an action film. This was her doing actrobat moves and shooting and twisting for sex appeal. This is not Die Hard with cool and bloody deaths, this is not Inception with battles in the human mind, this is not Batman Begins taking on groups of men without them even seeing him, and this is not Indiana Jones with cool booby traps and chase scenes. This is a movie that has some decent action scenes but then I am always wondering why they cannot just make it where Anjelina Jolie looks like she is about to start shaking it for dollar bills.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is simply not a good movie. It may just be my opinion but I think all they were trying to do was make a movie where half of the reason everyone went to see it was because of a hot actress. I will give it that I found some action scenes so weird that they were interesting, including a robot battle at the start of the movie. But overall I did not get into the story, did not like the cast, and overall did not like this movie.