

It’s thin gruel, but for action junkies, it’s sustenance. That gives Norwegian director Roar Uthaug ( The Wave) two shake-and-bake action sequences: an MMA sparring match to prove Lara’s mettle, and a bike chase through the streets of London. So she scrapes together money delivering Indian food by bike in London and sharpens her mixed martial arts skills at a local gymnasium. Seven years after her archeologist father, Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West), disappeared, Lara refuses to concede that he’s dead, which means she can’t access her massive inheritance.
Lara croft tomb raider movie cast professional#
When Tomb Raider opens, Lara hasn’t even considered becoming a professional adventurer, so the film has to figure out various tortured ways to keep the action beats coming.

The new alterations to the story aren’t dramatic enough to elevate the series, but they do reflect a post-Gamergate shift in priorities, with an emphasis on Lara’s athleticism instead of her sex appeal, and a plot that sends her into battle on an island of men.īut getting her to the island, let alone allowing her to raid tombs, takes some doing. The new Tomb Raider is a reboot of a reboot, adapting the 2013 video game by Crystal Dynamics, which was itself searching for a fresh start to a franchise that began in 1996, then foundered over a decade of sequels with diminishing returns. But the script held her back, making her fight the stiff headwinds of an Illuminati conspiracy plot, gross objectification, and the comic stylings of actor Noah Taylor.įifteen years after Jan de Bont’s sequel, Lara Croft: Cradle of Life, brought Jolie’s exploits to a close, the franchise has been revived as a vehicle for Alicia Vikander, another upstart raising her profile after winning an Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar. Under better circumstances, Jolie could have offered her version of Harrison Ford’s knowing smirk through exotic locales and spring-loaded traps. Director Simon West ( Con Air) found a glimmer of possibility in the material by casting Angelina Jolie in the lead - not just because she fed the lust of male gamers and gazers, but because she brought in some of the sly unpredictability that won her an Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar for Girl, Interrupted two years earlier.

It grafted the cutscene mythology of the popular video game onto an adventure that rappelled down the Uncanny Valley of early-2000s special effects. Released in summer 2001, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was an ungainly attempt to level up the art of cinematic Raiders of the Lost Ark knockoffs.
