Review of Tomb Raider (2018) by Dafydd M — 20 Mar 2018

Tomb Raider is now the third feature film adaptation of Square Enix's game series, this time around Lara Croft is portrayed by Alicia Vikander no longer Angelina Jolie of the original first two films.

Lara Croft is the heir to the Croft family her father has been missing for quite sometime and she's very independent, she doesn't feel the need to take any of this money; but once she uncovers some truths about her father and a possible location where he may have gone missing, she sets out on her very first adventure to find him.

This film is very much based on the 2013 reboot game and it follows it very closely, many visual elements from that game carry over to this film including tiptoeing across a plane that's stuck in a waterfall or tiptoeing across a tree that's fallen over a cliff, surviving a lot of falls even certain wounds that she gets are straight out of the game.

When she comes face to face with danger and a life-threatening situation in which she has to make a terrible choice, it plays out similar to the game and in that way, this is one of the most visually faithful video game adaptations ever made.

This film was directed by Roar Uthaug and with him he's brought a good sense of momentum, he understands the important stepping stones that have to be present to setup Lara Croft as the Tomb Raider we know her to be and all the things that have to happen for that development to make sense.

Her first Adventure, her first kill, her first wound she has to dress all of these are setup fairly well and that's my biggest takeaway as a positive from this movie is the character of Lara Croft has never been portrayed in a film more realistically and better.

Alicia Vikander is really good in this movie, she honours this character so well and whether or not fans end up liking this movie or not I think the majority will walk away happy with the portrayal of Croft on the big screen.

As someone who is a fan of the games, who has played most of them, I was overall happy with this adaptation, it has a few issues storytelling wise and in the first acts pacing, but I think Tomb Raider fans will mostly be happy, it's not great film by any means it has a lot of silly elements and for the most part it's just a fun action thriller.