Review of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life (2003) by Earl H — 01 Aug 2009

Where the film falls apart is its lack of any pacing or danger. It opens with action and you can almost set your watch by the action sequences, as they come every three minutes. There's no build-up, no tension.

Just one scene of mayhem after another. The first movie was somewhat slow in its action sequences, but this film goes too far in the other direction. What makes it weaker is that there's no danger.

Lara faces as much risk as the girls in Charlie's Angels Full Throttle. She runs through bullets without a scratch. In one of the movie's most ludicrous scenes, she punches a shark and then rushes to the surface on its back without suffering the bends.

Not only does she jump off a building and parachute safely onto the deck of a ship, she later parachutes right into a moving jeep in the Africa desert. 'll say this, it's a beautiful film, shot in some very exotic locations, and that richness lends itself well to DVD.

But the CG was not good, not good at all. There were some terribly obvious scenes, such as Lara supposedly riding her motorcycle along the Great Wall of China or the stealth ship she and Sheridan use to sneak into China.