Tomb Raider is yet another rebooted franchise that tries to better its previous incarnation, but it never achieves that. Given this is based on a video game, that’s simultaneously a low bar to reach and also damning with faint praise.
Alicia Vikander takes over from Angelina Jolie as she plays the titular character, the wealthy blue-blood orphan Lara Croft who wants to live a normal existence and not be associated with her father’s riches or his escapades with recovering artifacts. She’s eventually confronted by her father’s business partner (Kristen Scott-Thomas and Derek Jacobi) who tell her that her family’s estate will be sold if she refuses to claim. She investigates and finds a series of clues left behind by her father that will lead to ancient treasures.
She journeys off towards Hong Kong and then to a mysterious island where the treasure is hidden. Little does Lara realize, another team is on the way to find the same exact thing, led by one of her father’s rival archaeologists (Walton Goggins). Of course, he is her main competition. If he wasn’t, we wouldn’t be treated to all of the insane special effects sequences and convoluted plot threads that follow.
Vikander never surpasses Jolie in terms of wit or charm, but she does hold her own physically. As for the rest of her performance, she looks like she’s sleepwalking through the material.
It’s the movie’s repetition of exposition followed by less-than-exciting action scenes that got old really fast. The movie was obviously made for the multitude of fans who love the video game; I’m not one of them. The only thing that might be considered exciting to fans and head-shaking to the rest of the audience is that it promises a sequel.
It’s like a relic in a museum: It might be cool to look at for a second, but once you move on, it disappears from memory. Although, exhibits in museums would have more life in them from 2000 years ago than this thing does in 2018.
Grade: C
(Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, and for some language.)
