Review of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life (2003) by Xgary X — 31 Aug 2009

Lara Croft finds a novelty bowling ball that can reveal the location of Pandora's Box if you play it a tune, and so sets off to get it before an evil scientist can get his hands on it and unleash a plague on mankind.

This preposterous plot is a virtual carbon copy of the plot to The Mummy Returns although quite why anyone would want to copy that is beyond me. It kind of reminded me of one of those globetrotting action movies Jackie Chan used to make, but whereas Chan would've injected a lot of humour into the proceedings, this film just joylessly lumbers from one unexciting and formulaic set piece to the next.

Angelina gamely strips to her skinnies and runs around shooting the extras, the entire film fuelled solely by her sex appeal but the direction is sloppy and lazy and it's very difficult to care about any of it.

It's virtually devoid of any imagination or invention and is one of the most soulless, mechanical exercises in making a fast buck I've seen yet.