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Lara Croft - Tomb Raider Customer Reviews (16 - 18 of 54 Reviews)

Lara Croft Let Down.....
I am a big fan of 'heroine' action movies, and so I was glad to watch this one. Angela Jolie, stars as the pouty-lipped, heroine "Lara Croft."

This is the story of Lara's discovery of a mysterious clock, hidden in the immense Croft mansion. The clock holds the key to a mystical device which is coveted by an evil cult (aren't they all?) Can Croft prevent the key from falling into the wrong hands?

Angela Jolie does her best to breath life into the buxom action heroine, but it was a difficult task. The movie (loosely based upon the videogame) has a meandering action plot, (which seemed to be designed to show Jolie's figure to its best advantage) and an immense special effects budget which might feed a small third world country.

While not utterly terrible, in a world of 'video-game' knockoff movies such as 'mortal Kombat' , I can't honestly say that Tomb Raider had much to recommend it unless you are missing your dose of eyecandy for the week. Good for a laugh, but nothing to take to seriously. Next...!!!

Better then Indiana Jones and the best video game/movie!
Before I even watched this movie, I was convinced that this movie was gonna suck. After seeing such horrible video game-to-movie disasters as Super Mario Brothers, Street Fighter, and the Mortal Combat movies, I only decided to see this movie because of the presence of Angelina Jolie. To my surprise, I walked out of the theatre very satisfied with what I saw.

First, the plot was very good. I expected this movie to be a shoot-em-up movie with almost no story, but boy was I wrong! The plot of this movie is one of the most complex (and one of the coolest) I've ever seen! Put simply, Lara Croft must use a mysterious, ancient clock she found to race against the Illuminati to get the two halves of an ancient triangle. (The two halves are hid at opposite ends of the globe.) When the two halves are put together, they can alter time, but this can only happen during the planetary alignment, which only happens every 5,000 years.

Filling in the gaps are some great action scenes, which includes fighting giant rock monsters, a fight in Lara's mansion, and more. Also, Angelina's character is actually devloped in this film. I expected just some nudity or something, but instead there are emotional scenes that tastefully develop her as a person as well as her past.

Everything else is top-notch in this movie: The special effects are great and the villains are truly convincing. The sets are wonderful, as is the cinemetograpghy. The acting is decent and the action scenes are well executed. (Angelina Jolie trained for 3 months to learn fighting techniques and how to operate firearms for this film.)

The only flaw to this movie is that it sort of rips off Indiana Jones and the ending is sort of weak. But then again, this movie is BETTER THAN ALL 3 INDIANA JONES FILMS COMBINED. Also, most people will be able to forgive the ending because of the earlier events in the movie.

Simply put, this movie is a must-see for action/adventure fans and anyone who appreciates a good story.

2001; 100 minutes; Rated PG-13 for intense but sustained sequences of action/adventure violence, mild language, and some sensuality.

Not good, but certainly not all bad
I'm not sure what possessed me to pick up Tomb Raider after reading all the horrible reviews already posted for it, but I did, and while Tomb Raider is everything that has already been said about it, I still found it a fun and worthwhile purchase.

Tomb Raider had the task of trying to please two distinct groups of fans: the video gamers who wanted an accurate adaptation of their beloved franchise (I never got around to finishing the first game), and those drooling for another Indiana Jones-style adventure flick. On the first count, Tomb Raider (TR) succeeds admirably. Lara Croft's world is perfectly translated to the screen, and Lara Croft herself is perfectly captured by Angelina Jolie. Like the games, the movie has Lara facing ancient evils and supernatural powers all while blasting away evil guardians and humans attemptng to thwart her. All the actors are believable, and the dialogue can be very witty at times: When the Illuminanti tell their field agent he must hurry or risk waiting another 5000 years, he answers that that's more time than he's willing to commit to this enterprise. It's not too hard to imagine someone in real life saying something of a similiar nature. The subplot of Lara wanting to see her father again adds depth that wasn't found in the game. Tomb Raider is a good video game adaptation, easily the best since the original Mortal Kombat movie.

However, as an adventure flick, Tomb Raider is sorely lacking. The movie feels like four distinct action set pieces coupled together with bits of dialgoue and traveling. At one point, Croft and her allies head to Siberia, but we're never told exactly how they knew to search there. This is one case where I wouldn't have minded if the movie had been longer, just so we could get a sense of the logistics behind the globetrotting. Another gripe is the action sequences: they're flashy, loud, rapidly cut, and totally ruin whatever excitment they were trying to build. Think back to the Indiana Jones Trilogy or even The Mummy Returns: these had nicely choreographed action sequences set to epic scores, where the viewer could savour the action without being over-bombarded. Then there is the special effects: A lot of them weren't needed. The Ray Harryhausen-ish stone monkeys were cool, but I could have done without the lightening in the final scene, and if they'd filmed the flashback of the triangle's origin using real locations, it would have been more believable. Lastly, there is the suspension of disbelief factor. The movie asks us to buy the whole 'controlling time with a mythical triangle' storyline. Okay, fine, for the movie's sake, I will. But plots like these need realistic scenes to ground them, and the movie doesn't have enough. Case in point: Lara drinks some tea given to her by a monk, which magicaly heals her wound. Walking stone monkeys I can accept, but herbal tea has its limits!

So while Tomb Raider succeeds as a video-game-based movie, it fails as an adventure movie. The disc has top-notch video and sound, but while the supplements are generally good, they're not enough to warrant a purchase by themselves. While Tomb Raider isn't the best movie I've ever seen, I enjoyed it enough that I can honestly say I didn't waste 100min of my time.

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