Review of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life (2003) by Perk8J — 13 Jul 2021

Lara Croft Tomb Raider (2001) starring Angelina Jolie captures the gist of the video games by Core Design/ Eidos Interactive. It had all the campiness and over-the-top CGI. However, that was sort of what made it a fun quest film.

For its sequel, director Jan de Bont follows these tropes in Cradle of Life (2003) complete with a snarling great white shark and a motorcycle speed race on The Great Wall of China. For the most part, Cradle of Life improves on the original with a more believable british accent from Jolie this time around and better plot pacing.

Whereas the first film is more an outlandish video game film its sequel tries to be a more filmic action movie. In that sense, Cradle of Life plays out like a 007 film starring Pierce Brosnan with a little Indiana Jones thrown in for good measure.

Like 007, Lara Croft has all the high-tech gadgets and in Cradle of Life she even gets help from Mi6. At times it’s hard to take Cradle of Life as serious as it tries to be, but like the first it is all in good fun.