Confession: I've never played any of the Lara Croft games and I've not yet seen the films starring Angelina Jolie (though I'll be watching them soon). This was my first experience with the character and franchise.
What a blast! It's a sort of origin story -- I assume it's a reboot -- of the character with Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina, Tulip Fever, The Danish Girl) playing Miss Croft. She's totally badass, a hardcore action star that I certainly didn't see coming. Tough and reckless, her character is almost as impressive as Vikander, not letting the brute violence around her keep her down long. It's the sort of stuff that makes a star, and Croft, being one of the only survivors of the film's climax, is every minute a rousing hero.
That's not to say it's all a fun and fabulous movie. The story feels like a half-baked, half-eaten, and half-digested meal of Indiana Jones; that's not such a bad thing, but surely there were other ways to film sequences than copying them from Crystal Skull or Last Crusade. It's also irritatingly sentimental for an action movie and relies on excessive flashbacks to unravel the emotional connection Croft has with her father (Dominic West), whose lengthy absence and possible death serves as the major MacGuffin.
The story is simple and dull, that is, until the very end. The denouement is chilling and terribly exciting, as it suggests much more to come as Croft seeks to undermine the villainous Trinity organization, a powerful shadow group that has infiltrated her family's many business holdings. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for more appearances by Derek Jacobi and especially Kristin Scott Thomas as potential Big Bads!
What else is there to say? The action is very exciting, the special effects are pretty great, and the physical work done by the actors is amazing. If you want a mostly mindless action adventure of the old-fashioned kind, watch it. If you love Alicia Vikander (like me) and want to watch her kick lots of booties (and a few balls), watch it. If you like video games and get excited by movie adaptations, well, I can't really speak to that, but you should still watch it. Two hours of preposterous, blood-pumping genre film viewing won't be wasted time.
IMDb: Tomb Raider
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