Tomb Raider (2018)

Tomb Raider (2018)

6/10

Starring

Alicia Vikander

Dominic West

Walton Goggins

Daniel Wu

Directed by Roar Uthaug

I must be honest—Alicia Vikander is a wonderful actress, and she must have gone through some rigorous training and experience in the production of this movie. This Tomb Raider reboot turned Alicia’s Lara Croft into much of a throw-around, where she gets flung everywhere, punched in every fight scene, and, in a way, totally messed up. I pretty much appreciated this instead of a movie where she’s an unstoppable force. This movie is meant to be the birth of Lara Croft with her two guns, and although the story could have been done better and the movie a lot shorter, I don’t think it’s a bad start.

Like the old Lara Croft starring Angelina Jolie, Lara’s absent father affected the way she grew up and perceived life. Her hunt for what happened to her father is what led to this whole movie. Lara’s father went on a hunt to save the world—a hunt known only to him and a group (or company) known as Trinity. He wanted to make sure the mystical powers of the Queen of Yamatai never fell into the hands of the wrong people, who wanted to use the Queen’s power of death from touch to take over the world.

This action-adventure movie starts with her father gone—some say dead—and Lara refusing to use or be part of his heavy financial background to take care of herself. Instead, she works as a bike messenger and struggles to meet her needs. She’s later approached to claim her inheritance or lose it all. She agrees and stumbles on a message from her father. The message leads her to his study, where she finds a recorded message asking her to burn all his files on the Queen of Yamatai. She ignores the message, deciphers his notes to pinpoint where he traveled to, and decides to go find him.

On her journey, she meets a group sent by Trinity and is captured. Lara must find a way to get away from under Vogel, a man who oversees the Trinity hunt, and continue her search for what happened to her father.

The movie starts with me having a fond recollection of an Irish voice, which later turned out not to be that of Dara Ó Briain. The way the movie ends reminds me of Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), where the entirety of the movie doesn’t end up making sense, as what happened would have happened—or not happened—if Lara had just stayed home.

An okay movie that anyone could watch.