Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider (2018)

50% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 177 reviews)

Runtime: 118 minutes

Directed by: the greatly named Roar Uthaug

Starring: Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, Kristin Scott Thomas

From: Warner Bros./MGM

This is a good time; not a masterpiece but still fun: 

A few days ago I watched Lara Croft: Tomb Raider; I was not impressed in the least. OK, the dance soundtrack was cool but otherwise the movie was kind of insufferable and as I have never played any Tomb Raider game, it does seem kind of odd I would want to see this. Yet as a kid I loved the Indiana Jones movies (and I still do; let's not talk of Crystal Skull) and I suspected this would be a silly adventure filmed in some exotic locations so it was worth a shot. I imagine a few would speculate it was because of the lead; I don't “stan her” (to use the lingo the kids like to say) yet I was surprised when a few months ago I discovered there were some men that really don't care for Alicia Vikander's appearance. To each their own...

This movie was what I expected. It's not the exact character origin as seen in previous iterations but that is OK. Lara does go looking for her missing father again, which I thought was amusing. She does visit exotic locations as she runs, jumps, swims, uses a bow & arrow, etc... from Wikipedia I know this story borrows some elements from one of the games. There's also Walton Goggins; between the character being played by him and what was shown in the trailers, you can guess if he's a white hat or a black hat kind of person.

It's a silly movie and some moments don't bear close scrutiny. Yet it is still enjoyable. It's not epic like the first three Indy movies but at the same time it wasn't aggravating like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was. There are entertaining-enough action scenes that provide the requisite amount of thrills and there are also puzzles that Croft has to solve. It's what you'd expect even if this isn't brutal and almost sadistic like the 2013 reboot game apparently is. Vikander is quite good in the role. Sure, she isn't overly muscular but she's still in great shape and sometimes she uses MMA techniques to her advantage. She is not a superhero; Lara does take a beating and when she has to kill a person for the first time, it is a traumatic event.

This is not a great movie, but in comparison to other videogame films it might as well be. Most of those don't make the average film goer or the fanbase happy; at least this is a fun adventure that won't be fingernails on a blackboard like the 2001 Angelina Jolie movie was.