Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Review
by "JoBlo" (joblo AT joblo DOT com)June 21st, 2001
TOMB RAIDER
RATING: 4/10
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PLOT:
Lara Croft is British, rich and kicks a lot of ass. She also likes to raid tombs but when the Illuminata discover that all nine planets are about to stand in alignment for the first time in 5000 years, and that Lara holds the key to time, well, needless to say, they want to nab it from her. Oh yeah, Lara also likes to sport a lot of tight
shirts...hummana-hummana-hummana...
CRITIQUE:
Angelina Jolie was great in this movie. There were also about three "action scenes" that were pretty cool to look at in this film. Uhhhhhm, unfortunately the rest of the movie sucked! Bad dialogue, generic sidekicks and bad guys, a lame mystery, Yoda-esque moments with mumbo-jumbo being sprouted about and even some crappy CGI near the end. All in all, this movie wasn't the horror show that some of the early reviews had warned us about, especially since every other scene does feature Jolie's torpedoes begging to burst out of her lucky shirts, but it was quite the letdown nonetheless, especially when you consider the major opportunity that the filmmakers had here to create a cool, hip woman hero, based on a popular video game. I don't know, I guess you have to put most of the blame on director Simon West, who didn't really tie the whole movie together all that well. The film lacked energy, a consistent pace and well...a fun time! I felt kinda depressed while watching this movie. All that "father" crap was horrible and the dialogue given to poor John Voight to recite was just plain embarrassing (and I'm not even gonna mention his moustache...hehehe). Why have this shite in the movie at all?!?
I especially hated the scenes in which some ghost-like figure, friend or child would ramble on about Lara Croft's father while all the time, I'm not giving one ounce of crap as to what they're talking about. I guess that's called lack of "character development", right? That's when a movie builds enough background into the characters on the screen, so that we could actually "get into" it and care about them. I didn't care about anyone in this movie, and was bored during most of its "let's explain why we're doing all this gobbledygook" moments. And even though I thought that Jolie kicked some mighty ass (damn, did she look sexy blasting those guns or what?!?), everybody else around her was so goddamn boring! Her butler was a throwaway with no personality, her side-kick was supposed to be funny but just annoyed me every time he said the word "bugger" (and he says it a lot, trust me!) and all of the so-called bad guys just spewed one-dimension! They had no spark, no energy amongst them, and even though a few of the action scenes in the movie were cool (see the trailer and you'll know which ones I'm talking about), the overall picture was lame and the dialogue and mystical bull-crap just buried it even further.
Also, for a movie that's supposed to be about all of these exotic locations, I wasn't necessarily impressed by any of its exterior shots, and even less so with its interiors, which all looked like they were shot in the same room. Mind you, I won't go as far as to say that it's the "worst movie of the year" (remember that I actually have to go see Freddie Prinze Jr. movies also!), but it's definitely the worst film that I've seen during this summer movie season (of course, it's still early and I'm sure there are a few more garbage heaps coming down the pike). Skip this one altogether and rent any of the INDIANA JONES movies instead...trust me, you'll miss the boobs but end your night with some rock-solid porn and it's all good!
Where's JoBlo coming from?
Raiders of the Lost Ark (10/10) - The Mummy (8/10) - Lost in Space (7/10) - The Mummy Returns (6/10) - The General's Daughter (3/10) - Romancing the Stone (7/10) - Wild Wild West (3/10) - Mission Impossible 2 (7/10)
Review Date: June 15, 2001
Director: Simon West
Writers: Patrick Massett and John Zinman
Producers: Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin, Colin Wilson
Actors: Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft
Iain Glen as Mandfred Powell
John Voight as Lord Croft
Genre: Action
Year of Release: 2001
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(c) 2001 Berge Garabedian
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