Tomb Raider... again

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

My exposure to the franchise hasn't grown much beyond that U2 video I posted earlier.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

I just can't figure out, why Tomb Raider? The games are largely forgotten, and I don't remember the Angelina Jolie movies being a massive deal.

I'd seen the first Jolie film because, well just because really. It was what my university's movie program was showing for free that week. Since then it's not something I'd given much thought.

Alicia Vikander is quite beautiful (if less well endowed than the image of Lara Croft), though we've already seen more of her in Ex Machina than this film will likely show.

[Graham Kennedy]

It's Tomb Raider because despite it being no longer current, there's name recognition.

Don't think of it as "how will Tomb Raider do versus some more famous franchise based on a major current game". Think of it as "how will Tomb Raider do versus some generic female action movie based on an original script."

The former will almost always be chosen over the latter because the advertising is easier since people already know what it is.

[Graham Kennedy]

So Ian and I saw this today and were both pleasantly surprised by it.

It was rather better than I expected it to be, though still by no means great. I've never played the games so I can't comment on how well this represents their tone and spirit. But as a straightforward action movie, I quite enjoyed it. And I did very much appreciate...

That they implied supernatural stuff would happen, only to Scooby-Doo it at the climax. Score one for skepticism.

Other things I liked - I liked that this was an origin story for Lara. I liked that it wasn't as absurdly over the top as the other movies - Lara isn't essentially an effortless superhero in this movie, she is just a tough, capable woman with a huge amount of determination. I like that she's "normal" at the start, with a regular job. I like that the first time Lara kills somebody she's obviously strongly affected by it - she doesn't toss off a one liner, she acts like a normal person who'd just killed another person would. Lots of little touches like that which made it just a more grounded sensible movie than the Jolie ones.

And I enjoyed that they set up a sequel in a pretty smart way that was related to the story so far, rather than just tossing in a scene at the end.

All in all I'd rate it around 7/10. Shame it didn't do that well, as I'd like to see more.