Tomb Raider
Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander) lives a carefree, hand-to-mouth existence despite the fact that her long lost explorer-archeologist father, Richard (Dominic West), left her a vast fortune. Now of age, she discovers a secret office in the family mansion and evidence that her beloved dad may not be dead. She embarks on her own mission to find him in “Tomb Raider.”
Laura's Review: DNS
DNS
Robin's Review: B-
The last time Lara saw her dad, he was leaving on the dangerous quest to find the tomb of the mysterious first queen of Japan. Empress Himiko, who had great and destructive power and was imprisoned on an uncharted island in the Devil’s Sea by her council to protect the world. Lara finds a video left for her by her father before he disappeared. He warns her of the immense power the mythical queen still yields and, since he is obviously no longer with us, demands that his daughter destroy all of his research about Himiko to keep it hidden forever for the sake of mankind. This begins a world-trekking adventure that takes us from London to Hong Kong to South Africa as Lara searches for her dad and must face incredible odds if she is to succeed. Alicia Vikander reprises the role first inhabited by Angelina Jolie way back in 2001 but Norwegian director Roar Uthaug and his star go in a different direction than the original. Writers Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Evan Daugherty and Alastair Siddons give Lara’s back story the attention necessary to show our heroine as smart, athletic and really capable of thinking on her feet. Vikander is physically impressive and puts the hard work into making the action look easy. (I, for one, would not want to go one on one with her in a fight. I would lose.) Not knowing much about the Tomb Raider video games, I walked into the movie with few expectations – a good thing for someone ignorant of the video franchise. I let the adventure wash over me and, while not a fan, I enjoyed the proceeding right through to the end. There is, as one might expect, the epilogue that sets the stage what the filmmakers hope will be another franchise juggernaut.
