Summary
Her father, obsessed by his wife's death and a search for immortality, disappeared years ago. Now a young aimless drifter, Lara Croft discovers a clue to her father's whereabouts and seeks to recover him no matter who, whether international arms cartel or ancient sorceress queen, tries to stop her.
My Thoughts
This movie really made me sad. Not because it was moving, but because it wasn't and it seemed like it wanted to be. But therein lies the problem. Should a Tomb Raider movie, that is trying to establish a franchise, be moving?
Probably not. It should be exciting and fun, and this movie is occasionally. The humor is ok, the acting is good, for what they have to work with, and the action is alright, but that isn't what a movie like this needs.
It needs top notch creative dialogue, not a steady stream of cliches being recited as if later they will be checking to make sure they got them all and can cross them off their list or requirements. Yeah, she cares about her dad. Remember that scene where she said it earlier?
I know people will say you can only expect so much from a Video Game movie, but that's exactly why this movie should be great. It's a sandbox to play in and build deeper characters and more astounding visual scenes than you could in a video game.
Unfortunately the director was content to create something that is more boring, more cliche, and with worse visual effects than the video game. Why even see this movie then, if the game is better in every regard?
Verdict
What is heartbreaking about this film is how close it is to being good. Shuffle a couple of plot points around, hire a decent dialogue writer and increase the VFX budget 15% and the film could be the start of the next “IndianaJones”-Esque franchise
Instead, this film does little more than make me wish I was playing the game Instead
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