Is The 'Tomb Raider' Reboot Movie Any Good? Here's What The Reviews Say
Borrowing its less-leering perspective from the acclaimed 2013 reboot of the games, the new "Tomb Raider" directed by Roar Uthaug ("The Wave") and starring Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander ("The Danish Girl," "Ex Machina") seems like it desperately wants to break the video game movie curse. Out March 16th, does "Tomb Raider" tend closer to "Indiana Jones" than 2016's disastrous "Assassin's Creed?" Here's what the reviews say:
Like The Jolie Version, An Absent Dad Kicks Off The Plot
When we meet Lara, she's getting by on her wits and on her skills as a London bike courier, because to sign the papers that grant her an inheritance would be to acknowledge that [her father] Richard really isn't coming home like he promised.
[TheWrap]
As reasons for Richard's disappearance soon emerge, it sets both Lara and the film itself on a wild new track. Turns out Richard was also something of an amateur archeologist, and he went missing while searching for the hidden tomb of Queen Himiko, who was trapped on a distant island because of her "dark magic," the kind that kills with the touch of a hand. Richard wanted to keep it closed, but he wasn't the only one searching for it.
Alicia Vikander Admirably Gives The Role Her All
Like the last actor to don the turquoise tank top and calf-high boots, Alicia Vikander is chasing a Supporting Actress Oscar win with a paycheck blockbuster gig. But if 2001's terminally silly Lara Croft: Tomb Raider reduced Jolie to a poseable action figure, a supermodel badass who never broke a sweat, Vikander is at least afforded a little flesh-and-blood vulnerability.
Vikander is empathetic as a regular person who finds herself thrust into extraordinary circumstances, but once she gets on the island and escapes from the bad guys, Lara is basically the video-game character she's always been, hopping in and out of scrapes.
[TheWrap]
Though Uthaug leans heavily on digitally enhanced images of Lara leaping across impossible spaces, Vikander's surprising physicality keeps her from reading like a weightless effect. Her slightness in The Danish Girl and Ex Machina, however deceptive, is nowhere in evidence here.
Walton Goggins's Matthias Vogel Is An Alright Bad Guy
The reliably loony Goggins digs into playing Matthias as a man who's spent far too long in country (If he doesn't love the smell of napalm in the morning, he at least likes it very much).
As Vogel, Goggins steers into the malevolent curve, looking as comfortable fomenting chaos here as he did raising hell in Kentucky coal country for several seasons on Justified.
Goggins, a magnetic actor who projects the lean, hungry anger of vintage-period Jack Nicholson, never hits you over the head with evil; he lets Vogel's sleazy cruelty seep through his pores.
[Variety]
Thankfully, The Movie Doesn't Go For The Late '90s Sex Appeal Of The Old 'Tomb Raider' Games
The new Tomb Raider is a reboot of a reboot, adapting the 2013 video game by Crystal Dynamics, which was itself searching for a fresh start to a franchise that began in 1996, then foundered over a decade of sequels with diminishing returns. The new alterations to the story aren't dramatic enough to elevate the series, but they do reflect a post-Gamergate shift in priorities, with an emphasis on Lara's athleticism instead of her sex appeal, and a plot that sends her into battle on an island of men.
This Lara Croft is rarely sexualized by those around her — predominantly men, it should be noted — and even the film's principal villain is inclined to compare her to his own daughters rather than go a skeezier route. The film doesn't even attempt to shoehorn in a romantic subplot, though Vikander's chemistry with unlikely partner Lu Ren (Daniel Wu) is crackling and fun.
The Action Will Leave You Wishing You Could Just Play The Scenes Instead Of Watch
Tomb Raider never quite transitions into a set-piece machine; its second half rushes through a dump of mythological exposition while treating the "good stuff"—treacherous puzzles, swinging booby traps, run-and-gun showdowns—like perfunctory stops on a checklist.
The filmmakers seem to have decided that the best way to adapt the Tomb Raider franchise to screen is convert its gameplay to a noninteractive medium, rather than its story and characters, as if constructing the world's most expensive Let's Play video.
[Polygon]
It's like the movie shifts into a different reality for the action sequences. And since much of the action is relentlessly and often ruthlessly edited, in modern studio style, we can't even properly take in all the effort Vikander, the rest of the cast, and the stunt team are putting forth.
It Comes Off Like A Lesser Version Of 'Last Crusade'
As Lara uncovers secrets about her father – some buried underground, others bound in a journal – the plot has more than a whiff of familiarity. Call it Lara Croft and the Last Crusade. And that's even before she gets to the temple full of intricately-constructed traps.
After years of attempts, no one expects a video game movie to be high cinema. But if Tomb Raider wasn't going to be great, I had at least held out hope that it would be entertaining. The allowance I was determined to give it was, unfortunately, not quite returned, and I left the theater wondering how soon I could rewatch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
[Polygon]
Ultimately, The Script Dampens All The Fun On Offer
A cheesy voiceover serves as dunderheaded prologue, and all but consumes the narrative motion of the second act; flashbacks get out of hand in their attempts to round out Lara and Richard's relationship. (In the film's final moments, it even flashes back to a scene that happened a mere 90 seconds prior.)
The script by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Alastir Siddons is very much a connect-the-dots affair, unburdened by the need for subtlety, subtext or deep characterization — how many times we hear the father go all soft and call his daughter by her pet name "Sprout" cannot be tabulated.
When it comes to what should be the reliably dumb fun of tomb raiding, maybe there are worse crimes than insulting viewers' intelligence or bombarding them with crappy special effects. Boring them? Now that's a felony offense.
TL:DR
Since the genre of video games-turned-into-feature films has inflicted some real doozies on audiences, "Tomb Raider" towers above most of its peers by being merely OK.
[TheWrap]
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