Tomb Raider

RATING: C

Despite all the failures of video games movies over the years, Hollywood still keeps cranking them out. Even though most of them don't even make that much money. But they keep trying, hoping something will stick eventually. And so far... nothing really has. Some might say Warcraft did, but basically anyone who hasn't played the game and still saw the movie will say otherwise. Which is kind of the problem for some of these movies: they don't make much effort to allow people who haven't played the games to understand the movies. 

This particular video game turned movie is actually one we've already seen before. Yes, it's a reboot. We already had two Lara Croft: Tomb Raider movies back in the early 2000's with Angelina Jolie. I have not seen those, but my understanding is they're a bit campy. This new iteration of Tomb Raider is just the opposite. I don't know which version comes closer to the games... because I've never played them. But I will say that this movie feels more like a female-led version of Indiana Jones. 

Because origin stories are a thing these days, this is indeed an origin story. Alicia Vikander takes the lead role of Lara this time. And Lara isn't exactly in the tomb raiding business yet. Here, she just stumbles upon some long-lost clues regarding her father, who's been presumed dead for seven years. And wanting to find out what happened to him, she sets sail for some random hidden island her father was looking for. Some random island that is supposedly hiding the resting place of some random Japanese queen with supposedly supernatural powers. Why is her father (named Richard Croft) looking for this guy? Um... good question. There's kind of some conflicting answers/possibilities there. But he's not the only one, because as it turns out some evil hidden organization not named the Illuminati that wants to use supernatural power for controlling purposes is *also* looking for this supposedly supernatural corpse. 

Like I said before, I don't really know much the Tomb Raider franchise. And thus, I wasn't really aware of the supernatural stuff. Which helps to give the film an extra point of interest, I suppose. But for the most part, it's still too much like Indiana Jones or even National Treasure for its own good. But then it kind of cops out on the whole supernatural thing late in the game, giving us a weird twist that wants to be clever but is instead kind of dumb. And yet... the manner in which the bad guys are dispatched still kind of feels Indiana Jones-esque, only a little less gruesome. 

Tomb Raider is kind of an oddity at times. It's got a better story to tell than usual for a video game movie. There's some kind of confusing parts and a few wasted opportunities, but at worst it's more unoriginal than anything. It's also actually got some decent action scenes here and there; the film gets off to a slow start, but once we hit the island the pace picks up. And really, even if the film feels a little familiar at times, we still don't see this type of movie too often. So it has that going in its favor as well. 

In a way, the film's tone is the biggest issue. It's serious, but not serious or dark enough to actually move us. Also, the film is almost totally devoid of levity. Perhaps they were worried about either being too dark or too light-hearted. That is a dilemma some other franchises have grappled with in recent years, but this film doesn't even seem to have an answer. It's just kind of stuck in the middle, and it does suffer for being that way at times.  

Tomb Raider is certainly above average for a video game movie. The problem is, that's really not saying much. There is actually some room for decent material going forward, but they might need to get a better director. And that's assuming there will even be a sequel. But like I said before, these things almost never make that much money relatively and they *still* get at least one sequel! So who knows? I can't say I care a whole lot one way or the other whether we see another Vikander Tomb Raider movie or not. But at least they didn't totally bomb this one.