Image from the internet.

A movie based on a video game. Well, it worked for Angelina Jolie when she started as Lara Croft in the first Tomb Raider adaptation.

While I have not played any of the games, I remember the adds for the recent-ish reboot of the video game series. I was almost intrigued enough to purchase the game, but became sidetracked with other things. Still I remembered the trailers. So when I saw the trailer for the new movie, I thought – hey, this looks like the video game. And yup it was.

Apparently the latest Tomb Raider movie was based on the latest Tomb Raider video game. There is lots of running. Lots of tossing Laura around in a manner that no real human could survive with actually breaking at least a couple of bones. There is lots of grunting. But when it comes to plot, character or even dialogue – well this version is lacking.

Theoretically, this is set before the first Tomb Raider movies and is supposed to give more of an explanation as to how Laura becomes a tomb raider. As someone who saw the other films this was an large example of failure. There is a huge disconnect between the character we are introduced to by Angelina Jolie and the more recent Lara Croft played by Alicia Vikander. First, Alicia’s Lara is far more passive and mostly lacks a personality. Unfortunately, I spent most of the movie thinking – this was not the explanation we had for her father’s disappearance. This is not the name of the evil secret organization. This is not… well interesting.

Image from the internet

Even the action scenes were largely bland. There were too many running scenes that looked like they were filmed using a green screen. I should not see so easily through your special effects. The settings were less entrancing than one would hold. And there was a distinct lack of puzzles. Okay, that may be a silly complaint as there probably weren’t many actual puzzles in the 2001 film, but at least that older film had some dialogue.

While I appreciated the attempt to move away from the obviously magical to having a more scientific explanation for the central mythology. It was poorly developed, under-played and sadly executed. Also, it was rather incongruous how much effort was spent dispelling the woman as being a god with magic powers, when you completely fail to give any logical explanation for the disappearing floor. Exactly how would that have worked?

So, yup, like nearly every review I have stumbled across since first watching this movie, I will agree: Tomb Raider 2018 is a dud. I wouldn’t bother with this one.