Tomb Raider is a 2018 action film based on the popular video game character and her long running adventure series.
THE STORY: Young bike messenger Lara Croft (Alica Virkander) is struggling to make ends meet, still devastated by the disappearance seven years ago of her father (Dominic West), a wealthy adventurer. She’s avoided her lineage so far but when her aunt (Kristin Scott Thomas) warns her that if she doesn’t claim her inheritance, it will be lost forever, she reconsiders. The problem is, in doing so, she thinks it’s an admission that her father is dead, however, when she meets to signs the papers to his vast fortune, she is given a unique puzzle that leads her to a secret room in the Croft manor, one that opens up a whole new world of discovery, full of dangers that put her on the trail of an ancient mythical tomb … and maybe her father.
Director: Roar Uthaug
Writers: Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Alastair Siddons
Stars: Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Walton Goggins
THE RUNDOWN: Well before this movie was released, I wrote about the futility of casting for a Lara Croft movie, and I still stick to it, despite the good work Virkander does here. Actually, one of the best things director Roar Uthaug does in Tomb Raider is capture the essence of the recent rebooted game franchise, its gritty, violent, and action-heavy story very much looking like live-action cutscenes from the games. That of course leaves Miss Croft battered and beaten but also outsmarting and overcoming some very bad men and myriad obstacles in her way. While this is hardly a challenging journey for the audience, it’s paper thin plot never much more than excuses for big set-pieces, there’s enough spectacle and homage to the games to make this a fun time at the movies, even if you’ll be itching to pick up the controller and play it rather than watch it.
While gamers can really get behind the action, it’s Alicia Virkander’s excellent commitment to the iconic game hero that wins everything about this movie.
Loaded with action, the story itself comes up short with flat bad guys and a generic plot.
THAT MOMENT: Lara is underachieving. That’s the gist of where we’re at when the film begins, she obviously clever and highly intelligent but passing the time racing about the city as a bike courier, something even her boss wonders about. She’s destined for more and when she finds the secret room left behind by her father, it changes everything, mostly because she doesn’t do as his last instructions ask of her, to destroy all his research and move on. Actually, he should have known better. Duh. Look how he raised her. Would have been a short movie, too.
Incited by the exotic mysteries of his vast collection of work related to a thing called Himiko, the mythical Queen of Yamatai – said to have command over the power of life and death – Lara takes to leaving behind the bike and heading to the open ocean in search of answers. She follows a lead to Hong Kong and charters a small boat to the remote island of Yamatai, through the Devil’s Sea, where she is eventually shipwrecked on shore after a horrific storm straight up demolishes her ride. Devil’s Seas will do that.
However, once on land, she’s captured by Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins), the leader of another expedition to locate Himiko’s resting place. He’s using local slave labor to blast his way across the island to find the tomb, and getting frustrated by his lack of progress. Good news for him though, Lara brought with her the very book her father had hoped she’d burn, and as such, it falls right into Vogel’s grimy hands. Now he’s practically got a map straight to the treasure. Well done, Lara.
However, with the help of the boat captain she hired to ferry her here, she manages to barely escape Vogel’s men, a volley of machine gun fire chasing her into the jungle. Baddies on her heels, she’s able to make her way to a huge chasm in the trees, overlooking a raging river far below. Scurrying onto a fallen log stretched over the gap, hoping to reach the other side, she loses her grip and plummets into the swirly river, then is swiftly carried downstream over rapids toward a massive waterfall. It looks like the end, but then again … there is that hulking rusting husk of a downed Japanese WWII bomber resting at the top of the falls …
Her hands still bound, she reaches for the tail section but can’t hold on, frantically slipping over the edge of the waterfall and … right into part of the wing. Now dangling at a nauseatingly high height over certain death, she wriggles about and scrambles up on top of the crumbling wing, only to realize it’s about to collapse under her weight. She then leaps into the fuselage and uses the aging metal to tear free of her binds, only to find that now she’s dislodged the whole thing and it’s starting to slip free of the rocky crevice. “Really?” she says. Yes, Lara. Yes. Have you not played any of your games?
Tossed about a bit as the plane loosens from the precipice, she eyes a parachute mounted just above her, and just at the last possible second, snatches if free as she plummets into the abyss below, tugging on the release cord. Classic.
WHY IT MATTERS: Video game movie adaptations have a built-in audience, which also sort of limits interest if you’re not a gamer. However, as Tomb Raider and Lara Croft have been part of the pop culture landscape since the middle 90s, there’s probably few who don’t at least recognize the name if not the woman. Even with that, the rebooted game, released in 2013 – and where much of this film’s inspiration comes from – sold more than 11 million copies since launch, making it seem as though a lot of people would naturally have some interest in seeing a live action movie. Count me as one.
It’s this video game connection that makes this airplane moment really click since any player who got through the 2013 game knows, this set-piece is lifted right from one of the title’s early levels. It’s a bit padded out for the film, the pacing obviously a little different, but the river run, the escape into the fuselage, the reach for the parachute and the incredible descent that follows all echo the game.
This kind of commitment to tie the film directly to the game is what Tomb Raider gamers in the audience are looking for, not just an athletic young woman in a tight tank top with a British accent (though that certainly helps). Drawing right from our own experience in playing the game pulls us way into the action and more so, helps to sell the whole vision of the movie itself, one that perhaps many critics misunderstood because Uthaug was more closely mimicking the gameplay (which featured loads of over-the-top, almost comical, physical torment for Lara) than anything authentic. That’s a tough line to keep balance on.
Tomb Raider gamers know that Lara is all about beating the ever-livin’ crap out of the impossible, leaping and falling and running and tumbling and sliding and swimming her way up and over and through what would kill most anyone else but her (though the game famously made death animations of Lara for every fail on the gamer’s part, which was half the fun of trying). This sequence in the game is just an early start to a number of great action moments that are already cinematic in their presentation, but once on the big screen, well, goodnight, mister. This particular bit is one those game-to-movie moments that hits it right, and for any fan of the series (or the character for that matter) is reason why we’re sitting in the theater. That … and the tank top.
Tomb Raider might not be as good a film as it could, the generic story not quite as impactful as it really should have been. Vikander proves herself a terrific action star yet her considerable talents as an actor ultimately give the smaller moments with Lara a lot more weight. There just aren’t enough of them. Either way, for gamers and fans of the Tomb Raider franchise, there’s a lot to feel good about, with a spine-tingling action set piece atop a raging waterfall one to watch. It’s a great movie moment.