Rated PG-13 - Running Time: 1:38 - Released 6/15/01
TOMB RAIDER
Rated PG-13 - Running Time: 1:38 - Released 6/15/01
Having never played Tomb Raider, I cannot comment on how
faithful the feature film is to the video game. I can say that
the film, directed by Con Air's Simon West, has the intelligence
of your average video game, featuring lots of action, an unbelievable
hero(ine), and very little plot. But it does boast some serious
thrills, and Angelina Jolie is certainly more than adequate (read:
overqualified) for the role. Jolie's supporting actress Oscar
for last year's Girl, Interrupted
has not exactly led her to bigger and better things (the next
feature she appeared in was the appalling Gone
In 60 Seconds), but every actor needs a big-money, multi-sequel-supporting,
trademark action-adventure role, and I suppose for Angelina, it's
busty adventurer Lara Croft. From the first scene (where she battles
a robotic sentry whose imperviousness to bullets does not stop
her from firing hundreds of them in its general direction), Jolie
imbues Lara with the athleticism of a ninja, the marksmanship
of a professional sniper, and the personality of a bowl of oranges.
Tomb raiding is apparently what Lara Croft does best (besides
puckering), and that's what she's called on to do in this story
written by Mike Werb and Michael Colleary, adapted for the screen
by Patrick Massett, John Zinman, and director West. Having found
a mystical key hidden years ago in her palatial mansion by her
beloved deceased father (played by Jolie's real, non-deceased
father, Jon Voight), Lara launches bustily and puckeringly into
a race with rival raiders Manfred Powell (Iain Glen) and his assistant,
Alex Marrs (Daniel Craig), who used to be her friend, to an ancient
ruin in Cambodia. There they find hidden one half of the "triangle
of light," a mysterious device which, when reassembled with
its other half, can allow the bearer to control time.
With the respect for antiquity so common among action-movie
anthropologists, they find and steal the silver-spray- painted-styrofoam-looking
relic, taking time to thoroughly shoot up the place in the process.
Doing so arouses the ire of some menacing stone statues which
come to life (come to think of it, I would think this would be
of much more interest to anthropologists than a little half-triangle),
but they shoot them up, too, resulting in their escape and high-fives
all around. Then begins the race to find the second half of the
triangle and transport themselves back in time to the day before
they signed on to this movie.
With definite resemblances to the Indiana Jones movies, Tomb
Raider adds the now common element of computer-generated effects,
resulting in some truly amazing spectacles (of which the aforementioned
battle with the statues is one). But during the scenes when the
pixels aren't flying, there isn't all that much to recommend.
Jolie, who not only compensates for her strangely boyish lack
of hips with huge gazongas attached to her chest (are those implants
or is this just a push-up job?), but makes up for her character's
lack of personality with firepower and gymnastic agility, seems
to be almost straining against her proven acting talent to render
her computer-born character as two-dimensional as the original.
When Lara's not running around the walls in her PJs, suspended
from a bungee cord and firing her dual automatic weapons at her
many foes, she's not doing much of anything interesting. Her co-stars
are similarly flat, with the possible exception of Voigt, who
gives a modicum of depth to his few minutes of screen time.
Frankly, if you're the type of person who likes to sit in front of a screen and manipulate your joystick, you'll probably like this movie. Otherwise, beware. ***½